GLDAS Noah: Monthly Land Surface Variables at 0.25 Degree Resolution

NASA's GLDAS-2.1 Noah model provides 36 monthly land surface fields from January 2000 to the present. The data is generated by the Land Information System and forced with a combination of model and observational inputs, including GDAS, GPCP, and AGRMET. It is a reprocessed version from January 2020, using a MODIS land mask to correct inland water representation.

Use Cases

• Modeling soil moisture and temperature dynamics based on the 36 included land surface fields.
• Analyzing long-term trends in terrestrial water storage and snow cover based on the monthly data from 2000 onward.
• Validating other climate or hydrological models using the assimilated observational forcing data mentioned in the description.
• Studying land surface energy fluxes using the radiation and thermal property variables produced by the Noah model.

Strengths

• Contains 36 distinct land surface fields for comprehensive analysis.
• Provides a temporally consistent series from January 2000 to the present.
• Uses a high spatial resolution of 0.25 x 0.25 degrees for detailed global coverage.
• Post-processed with a MODIS land mask to improve accuracy over inland water bodies.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for specific ML tasks.
• Data may reflect temporal bias inherent to the specific forcing models and observation sources used.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Generated through temporal averaging of 3-hourly data simulated with the Noah Model 3.6 in the Land Information System (LIS) Version 7.

Time Range

January 2000 to present

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 02:29:09.037839; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global