A 59-year (1948-2006) global near-surface meteorological data set for land surface models. Part I: Development of daily forcing and assessment of precipitation intensity
July 18th, 2008
Yukiko Hirabayashi, Shinjiro Kanae, Ken Motoya, Kooiti Masuda and Petra Döll
Release Date: July 18, 2008
A 59-year (1948-2006) global near-surface meteorological data set for land surface models. Part I: Development of daily forcing and assessment of precipitation intensity
Yukiko Hirabayashi1)5), Shinjiro Kanae2), Ken Motoya3), Kooiti Masuda4) and Petra Döll5)
1) Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Medicine and Engineering, University of Yamanashi
2) Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
3) Faculty of Education and Human studies, Akita University
4) Frontier Research Center for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-earth Science and Technology
5) Institute of Physical Geography, Frankfurt University
(Received: April 11, 2008)
(Accepted for publication: June 20, 2008)
Abstract:
This paper describes the development and assessment of global 0.5° near-surface atmospheric data from 1948 to 2006 at daily (for precipitation, snowfall, and specific humidity) to 3-hourly (for temperature, shortwave radiation, and longwave radiation) time scales, which can be used to drive land surface models. Using newly available monthly precipitation and temperature data extending to recent years, the variables were created by statistical methods, the parameters of which were obtained from available daily to 3-hourly observations. The daily precipitation developed in this paper produces reasonable numbers of precipitation days and heavy precipitation days, different from previous long-term meteorological data sets based on reanalysis. Together with its relatively high spatial resolution (0.5°) and availability of recent years, the newly obtained data may be preferred to other forcing data sets in case of hydrological and climate change studies, in particular if the study results are sensitive to daily variations in atmospheric conditions.
To cite this article:
Yukiko Hirabayashi, Shinjiro Kanae, Ken Motoya, Kooiti Masuda and Petra Döll: “A 59-year (1948-2006) global near-surface meteorological data set for land surface models. Part I: Development of daily forcing and assessment of precipitation intensity”, Hydrological Research Letters, Vol. 2, pp.36-40, (2008) .
doi:10.3178/hrl.2.36
JOI JST.JSTAGE/hrl/2.36
Copyright (c) 2008 Japan Society of Hydrology and Water Resources