Global Historical Precipitation Grids 1900-1996

Global land areas are covered by this historical monthly precipitation dataset spanning 1900 to 1996. The data is provided by NASA and is gridded at two spatial resolutions: 2.5° latitude by 3.75° longitude and a 5° latitude/longitude grid.

Use Cases

• Analyzing century-scale precipitation trends using the monthly time-series data.
• Comparing precipitation patterns between different global regions using the gridded spatial data.
• Validating or calibrating climate model outputs against historical observational records.
• Studying interannual variability and potential shifts in global precipitation regimes.

Strengths

• Provides a 97-year temporal record (1900-1996) for long-term climate analysis.
• Offers data at two distinct spatial resolutions for flexibility in analysis scale.
• Dataset is hosted and maintained by NASA, indicating a credible source.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as column names, row counts, and exact data gathering method are unavailable from the sources.
• There is a conflict in the temporal coverage: the title suggests data up to 1999, while descriptions state 1900-1996.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified', requiring further investigation for reuse.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Gridded observational data for global land areas.

Time Range

1900-1996

Freshness

2026-03-13 02:13:05.729478

Geography

Global land areas