MERRA-2: Global Atmospheric Reanalysis at 3-Hourly Intervals, 1980-Present

MERRA-2 is a global atmospheric reanalysis produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) using the GEOS model. The dataset covers the period from 1980 to the present with a latency of approximately three weeks after the end of a month. It provides assimilated meteorological fields, such as temperature, wind, and water vapor, across 72 model layers at a 0.625 x 0.5-degree resolution every three hours.

Use Cases

• Climate trend analysis based on assimilated temperature and water vapor fields.
• Numerical weather prediction model validation based on 3-hourly, 3-dimensional meteorological parameters.
• Studying atmospheric dynamics based on wind components and vertical pressure velocity data.
• Hydrological modeling based on assimilated water vapor and related meteorological fields.

Strengths

• Covers a long temporal range from 1980 to the present.
• Provides data at a high temporal resolution of 3 hours and across 72 vertical model layers.
• Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO), an authoritative source.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO)

Collection Method

Assimilation of meteorological parameters using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4.

Time Range

1980-present

Freshness

Updated with a latency of ~3 weeks after the end of a month; last update date is unknown.

Geography

Global