GEOS-5 Nature Run: Global Atmospheric Simulation at 7-km Resolution, 2005-2007

A two-year global mesoscale simulation from 2005 to 2007 performed at a 7-km horizontal resolution with 72 vertical levels. The dataset includes standard meteorological parameters, 15 aerosol tracers, and trace gases like O3, CO, and CO2, generated by NASA's GEOS-5 model. Data is provided on both a high-resolution 0.0625-degree grid and a reduced 0.5-degree grid, with output intervals of 30 minutes and one hour, respectively.

Use Cases

• Simulating atmospheric transport and dispersion based on wind, temperature, and aerosol tracer data.
• Validating satellite retrievals and designing future observing systems using the high-resolution model output as a reference 'Nature Run'.
• Studying interactions between aerosols, trace gases, and meteorology based on included parameters like dust, sea-salt, sulfate, and carbon species.
• Analyzing diurnal and seasonal cycles of atmospheric constituents using the 30-minute and hourly time-averaged data products.

Strengths

• High spatial resolution of 7 km horizontally with 72 vertical levels extending to ~80 km altitude.
• Includes 15 specific aerosol tracers and trace gases beyond standard meteorological fields.
• Provides data on two convenient longitude-latitude grids (0.0625° and 0.5°) for user flexibility.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is driven by prescribed boundary conditions (e.g., sea-surface temperature), which may limit certain process studies.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Output from the Ganymed version (wmp-Ganymed-4_0_BETA8) of the GEOS-5 global atmospheric model simulation.

Time Range

2005 to 2007

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 02:11:31.309911; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global