Vertically Integrated Atmospheric Diagnostics from MERRA-2 Reanalysis

Vertically integrated diagnostic data from NASA's MERRA-2 global atmospheric reanalysis. The dataset provides hourly instantaneous fields, such as kinetic energy and total precipitable water, from 1980 to the present. It is produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model version 5.12.4.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in total precipitable water vapor over multi-decadal timescales.
• Validate climate model outputs against reanalysis data for kinetic energy fields.
• Study the diurnal cycle of vertically integrated virtual potential temperature.
• Correlate integrated diagnostic variables with surface weather events using the hourly timestamps.

Strengths

• Hourly temporal resolution provides data for diurnal cycle analysis.
• Covers a multi-decadal period from 1980 to present, enabling long-term climate studies.
• Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, a leading authority in atmospheric reanalysis.

Limitations

• Data has a latency of approximately three weeks after the end of each month, limiting real-time applications.
• Specific row counts, file sizes, and spatial resolution details beyond '0.625 x 0.5 degree' are not provided in the input.
• Reprocessing events may result in filename changes, complicating version tracking.

Provenance

Source

NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) via the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC).

Collection Method

Generated through the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2) reanalysis using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4.

Time Range

1980 to present.

Freshness

Updated monthly with a ~3-week latency.

Geography

Global coverage at a 0.625 x 0.5 degree longitude by latitude resolution.