(It may be necessary, depending on the data-set, to uncompress and unpack the raw files before the data files become available. See the specific data-set page for details.) There is also a software page.

An elevations file for each grid is also available. These files implicitly describes the land-sea mask, since only land boxes are given elevations. The format is the same as that of the data files, and these therefore represent examples of the data file format.

• The 0.5 degree grid for the globe has an elevations file (CRU TS 2.0, TYN SC 2.0). (1.3 MB, compressed).
• The 10 minute grid for Europe has an elevations file (CRU TS 1.2, TYN SC 1.0) (0.5 MB, compressed).

Each data file has the following structure:

• 5 header lines
• each grid-box with data (so for land-only data-sets, only the land grid-boxes are included), one box at a time

The header lines for a global 0.5 degree grid may look something like this:
Tyndall Centre file created by Tim Mitchell on 03.04.2001 at 14:00
.cld = cloud cover (percentage)
0.5deg clim6190 ->lan
[Long=-180.00, 180.00] [Lati= -90.00, 90.00] [Grid X,Y= 720, 360]
[Boxes= 67420] [Years=1990-1990] [Multi= 0.1000] [Missing=-999]

The header lines for a European 10 minute grid may look something like this:
Tyndall Centre file created by Tim Mitchell on 14.05.2001 at 15:05
.elv = elevation (km)
0.5deg Europe lan ->ATEAM
[Long= -11.00, 32.00] [Lati= 34.00, 72.00] [Grid X,Y= 258, 228]
[Boxes= 31143] [Years=1990-1990] [Multi= 0.0010] [Missing=-999]

The header lines give the following information:

• attribution and date stamp
• climatic variable (parameter) and units of measurement
• some key words (internal use only - ignore)
• the boundaries of the grid, and the number of grid-boxes on each axis
• the number of grid-boxes with valid data, the period covered by the file, the multiplier to apply the integers to obtain the correct values, and the missing value

The information for an individual grid-box may look something like this:
Grid-ref= 1, 148
720 750 750 700 630 600 610 610 660 670 710 720

The information for an individual grid-box consists of:

• a grid-reference for the box (the position on the x, y axes, with 1,1 in the bottom-left corner of the grid; for example, (x,y)=(243,125) is the box on a global half-degree grid with its centre at 58.75 degrees west, 27.75 degrees south)
• a number of lines of data (specified by the period recorded in the headers, beginning with the first year and ending with the last year), given as 12 integers of 5 digits (January, February, ..., December), which must be multiplied by the multiplier (in the headers) to obtain the correct values