The Global Climate Datasets easy to use for GIS Analysis. These data are totally free and have been produced by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of University of East Anglia (UEA), and reformatted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) to provide easy access and use in ArcGIS Grid format. Many thanks to Antonio Trabucco for reformatting the data, geo-processing the dataset for distribution on this site, and providing the impetus for this effort.
These datasets can be searched and downloaded freely as 5 x 5 degrees tiles, on BELOW scales:
- Global - 998 MB
- Asia - 409 MB
- Northern Asia - 186 MB - (Asian Russia and Mongolia)
- Western Asia - 47 MB - (Turkey, Middle East, South Caucasus and Iran)
- Eastern Asia - 95 MB - (China, Japan, Macau, North Korea, South Korea and Taiwan)
- Southern Asia - 32 MB - (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal)
- Central Asia - 60 MB - (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan)
- Southeastern Asia - 33 MB - (Indochina, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore)
- North America - 268 MB
- Central America - 26 MB - (All the Caribbean countries, including Mexico)
- Greenland - 37 MB
- North America - 213 MB - (Continental US and Canada)
- South America - 85 MB
- Africa - 132 MB
- Europe - 128 MB
- Oceania - 55 MB
(see the link at the bottom of this article).
It is also available clipped to the Basin boundaries. In alternative to HTTP download access; these datasets can be downloaded from the FTP Site as well. A detailed explanation of the formatting, methods, data structure and data dictionary is given on the Data Structure Page (see the link at the bottom of this article).
These Datasets are comprised of 1224 monthly time-series of climate variables, for the period 1901-2002, covering the global land surface, excluding Antarctica, at 0.5 degrees resolution. The nine climate variables available through this dataset are: daily mean, minimum and maximum temperature, diurnal temperature range, precipitation, wet day frequency, frost day frequency, vapor pressure and cloud cover. The original dataset in ASCII comma delimited format.
The climate grids have been recalculated in the version 2.1 for the 1901-2002 period, following a complete revision of the underlying station databases and using an improved method. The team is expecting to update this datasets soon with data up until 2005.
It is strongly recommended that users read the associated articles to the development and construction of these datasets. The issues involved in using CRU TS 2.1 for time-series analysis were addressed more explicitly and fully at UEA-CRU TS 2.0 and Time-Series Analysis: Advice for Users. The authors of these datasets recommend that all users who intend to examine climate change using this data sets should consider the issues carefully before beginning their work.
The creator of this data set (Dr. T. D. Mitchell) retains full ownership rights over it. The data set may be freely used for non-commercial scientific and educational purposes, provided it is described as CRU TS 2.1 and attributed to:
The CGIAR-CSI has produced this website with the support of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and Dr. Robert Zomer.
The Documentation of the formatting, methods, data structure and data dictionary
CRU TS 2.1 Global Climate Database
Continent-based Direct Dataset Downloads
