MERRA-2: Monthly Percentile Statistics for Temperature and Precipitation

January 1980 to December 2022 monthly percentile statistics derived from NASA's MERRA-2 atmospheric reanalysis. The dataset is produced by the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4. It provides percentiles for maximum, mean, and minimum 2-m air temperature and total precipitation.

Use Cases

• Identify extreme temperature events based on percentile statistics for 2-m air temperature.
• Characterize extreme precipitation events based on percentile statistics for total precipitation.
• Analyze climate variability over a 42-year period based on monthly percentile data.
• Compare climatological periods using the V1 (1981-2010) and V2 (1991-2020) percentile baselines.

Strengths

• 42-year temporal coverage from January 1980 to December 2022.
• Derived from NASA's authoritative MERRA-2 global atmospheric reanalysis.
• Provides percentile data for multiple temperature variables (maximum, mean, minimum) and precipitation.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data latency is approximately 3 weeks after the end of the previous month.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Derived from monthly Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2) datasets.

Time Range

January 1980 to December 2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 00:52:26.184931; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global