Now Available: 20th Century Reanalysis Data for 1891-2008
January 27, 2010
  Researchers can use the 20th Century Reanalysis dataset to better understand the atmospheric conditions associated with historical extreme events, such as the devastating 1900 Galveston, TX hurricane. (Click images to enlarge) |
On January 20th, ESRL's Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL) and the University of Colorado CIRES/Climate Diagnostics Center (CDC) made available a portion of the Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project's Version 2 dataset. Global four-times-daily atmospheric and surface data spanning the period 1891-2008 are now accessible on the PSL web site in netCDF format.
The Twentieth Century Reanalysis dataset is created from digitized weather observations from the past 100+ years, combined with numerical weather model forecasts on powerful supercomputers at Lawrence Berkeley and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. The goal of this project is to produce a more comprehenseive and improved historical dataset that can be used by researchers to better understand past weather variations, improve climate models, and help discern changes in weather variability that may be associated with climate change.
The last portion of the Version 2 data, covering the period 1871-1890 is currently in production and is expected late this spring. When complete, the project will ultimately encompass data from 1871-present.
| Contact: Gil Compo | More Information: |