MERRA-2: Hourly Vertically Integrated Atmospheric Diagnostics

Vertically integrated atmospheric diagnostics from NASA's MERRA-2 reanalysis, including kinetic energy, virtual potential temperature, and total precipitable water. The dataset provides hourly instantaneous data from 1980 to the present, produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the GEOS model. Data files are released with a latency of approximately three weeks after the end of each month.

Use Cases

• Analyze atmospheric energy dynamics based on kinetic energy diagnostics.
• Model total precipitable water distribution based on vertically integrated vapor, liquid, and ice data.
• Study hourly atmospheric state changes based on instantaneous data timestamps.
• Validate climate models based on long-term reanalysis data from 1980 onward.

Strengths

• Data covers a long temporal range from 1980 to the present.
• Hourly timestamps provide high temporal resolution.
• Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, indicating authoritative source.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Produced using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4.

Time Range

1980-present

Freshness

Data has a latency of ~3 weeks after the end of a month.

Geography

Global coverage at 0.625 x 0.5 degree resolution.