Documentation
This page contains the documentation for the CRU CL 2.0 data-set, and comprises:
Ownership
This data-set is owned by its author, Mark New. It is being distributed, where necessary, by Tim Mitchell.
Data
The CRU CL 2.0 data-set is available below.
Full range of data-sets
If you have arrived at this page from a different website (without the red frame), you may be interested in the wider range of high-resolution climate grids available here. There is a table detailing the full range of data-sets.).
8th October 2003
Data-set supply transferred from David Viner to Tim Mitchell. The only means of supply is now via download through a web browser.
Introduction
The data-set complements the prior data-set with the lower spatial resolution of 0.5 degrees (CRU CL 1.0).
The CRU CL 2.0 data-set comprises monthly grids of observed mean climate from 1961-1990, and covering the global land surface at a 10 minute spatial resolution. There are eight climatic variables available, and also the elevations on the grid: diurnal temperature range, precipitation, mean temperature, wet-day frequency, frost-day frequency, relative humidity, sunshine, and wind-speed. In addition minimum and maximum temperature may be deduced from mean temperature and diurnal temperature range (see FAQ).
Guidance
This data-set was constructed by Mark New. Users should refer to the published literature for details of it.
Data Structure
Data Summary
Ownership
New, M., Lister, D., Hulme, M. and Makin, I., 2002: A high-resolution data set of surface climate over global land areas. Climate Research 21:1-25 (abstract, article)
Disclaimer
The data-set is only available in the form of a set of ASCII files, accessible below.
The data-set is publicly available here. The file format and structure is documented via the readme file on the linked page.
The creator of this data set (Dr. Mark New) retains full ownership rights over it. The data set may
be freely used for non-commerical scientific and educational purposes, provided it is described as CRU CL 2.0 and attributed to:
The author of this data-set cannot bear any responsibility for the consequences of using it, which are entirely the responsibility of the user. It is inevitable that a data-set of this size will contain some errors and inconsistencies. However, these have been kept to a minimum and when they are identified they are corrected when resources permit. Updates to this data-set will be notified on this web page and by email to registered users.