Identification

Title

WATCH Forcing Data (WFD) - 20th Century Tair (air temperature) 1901-2001

Abstract

The WATCH Forcing data is a twentieth century meteorological forcing dataset for land surface and hydrological models. It consists of three/six-hourly states of the weather for global half-degree land grid points. It was generated as part of the EU FP 6 project "WATCH" (WATer and global CHange") which ran from 2007-2011. The data was generated in 2 tranches with slightly different methodology: 1901-1957 and 1958-2001, but generally the dataset can be considered as continuous. More details regarding the generation process can be found in the associated WATCH technical report and paper in J. Hydrometeorology. To understand how the data grid is formed it is necessary to read the attached WFD-land-long-lat-z files either in NetCDF or DAT formats. The data covers land points only and excludes the Antarctica. Tair or air temperature is the 2m air temperature (instantaneous) measured in K at 6 hourly resolution and 0.5 x 0.5 degrees spatial resolution.

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/datastore/eidchub/2a230752-9652-412b-9feb-9f419767032d/extracted

name: Download the data

description: Get a copy of this data

function: download

https://data-package.ceh.ac.uk/sd/2a230752-9652-412b-9feb-9f419767032d.zip

name: Documents

description: Documents available to assist with re-use of this dataset.

function: information

Unique resource identifier

code

1313500135390

codeSpace

CEH:EIDC:

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Atmospheric Conditions

Meteorological geographical features

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2008-06-01

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-180

East bounding longitude

180

North bounding latitude

90

South bounding latitude

-90

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

1901-01-01

End position

2001-12-31

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2011-08-01

Frequency of update

notPlanned

Quality and validity

Lineage

These data were created as part of the EU FP6 project WATCH which was coordinated by NERC-CEH and ran from 2007-2011. The data were generated in two tranches according to time interval. The data from 1958-2001 were based on ECMWF (European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting) "ERA-40" reanalysis data via interpolation, elevation correction and monthly bias correction from gridded observations. The data from 1901-1957 were created via re-ordering of the ERA-40 reanalysis one year at a time. For full details of the process see the WATCH technical report No 22 and Weedon (2011, J. Hydrometeorology).

Conformity

Conformity report

specification

title

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2010-12-08

degree

explanation

Data format

name of format

netCDF

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Please reference the use of the WATCH forcing data in any work published using http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2011JHM1369.1

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Please note that these data are based on climate reanalysis data, plus a spatial interpolation (from one-degree to half-degree), elevation correction and monthly-correction based on gridded observations. As such the WATCH Forcing data are designed for use in modelling (e.g. hydrological modelling) and for where good meteorological observations are not readily available.

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

email address

enquiries@ceh.ac.uk

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Responsible party

organisation name

email address

info@eidc.ac.uk

responsible party role

custodian

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

full postal address

Lancaster Environment Centre, Library Avenue, Bailrigg

Lancaster

LA1 4AP

UK

email address

info@eidc.ac.uk

web address

https://eidc.ac.uk/

name: EIDC website

description: The Environmental Information Data Centre (EIDC) is the UK's national data centre for terrestrial and freshwater sciences.

function: information

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-03-21T13:23:47

Metadata language