GLDAS-2.0: Daily Land Surface Parameters at 0.25 Degree, 1948-2014

NASA's Global Land Data Assimilation System Version 2.0 (GLDAS-2.0) daily dataset contains a series of land surface parameters simulated from the Catchment Land Surface Model 3.6. It provides a temporally consistent series from January 1948 through December 2014, forced entirely with Princeton meteorological forcing data. The data are archived and distributed in netCDF format by NASA's GES DISC.

Use Cases

• Modeling long-term soil moisture trends based on the simulated land surface parameters.
• Analyzing historical land-atmosphere interactions based on the temporally consistent meteorological forcing.
• Calibrating hydrological models using the Catchment Land Surface Model outputs.
• Studying climate variability impacts on terrestrial water storage from 1948 to 2014.

Strengths

• Covers a long historical period from 1948 to 2014, providing over 66 years of data.
• Uses a temporally consistent forcing dataset (Princeton meteorological data), reducing artifacts from input changes.
• Simulated from a specific, documented model version (Catchment Land Surface Model 3.6).

Limitations

• Data coverage ends in 2014; freshness should be verified for contemporary applications.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The description does not specify spatial resolution beyond '0.25 degree' or provide row/volume counts.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Simulated from the Catchment Land Surface Model 3.6, forced by the Princeton University global meteorological forcing dataset.

Time Range

January 1948 to December 2014

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 02:38:30.465560; data coverage ends in 2014.

Geography

Global