MERRA-2: 3-Dimensional Long-Term Mean Meteorological Fields

NASA's MERRA-2 reanalysis provides global 3-dimensional monthly climatological means and standard deviations for the period 1991-2020. The dataset includes meteorological diagnostics like air temperature, wind components, and humidity across 12 vertical pressure levels. It is produced by the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term mean atmospheric temperature patterns based on the air temperature fields
• Studying wind circulation and variability based on the wind component data
• Modeling humidity and moisture transport based on relative and specific humidity diagnostics
• Investigating vertical atmospheric structure based on data across 12 pressure levels

Strengths

• Based on a 30-year climatological period from 1991 to 2020
• Includes standard deviation fields representing interannual variability
• Provides data across 12 vertical pressure levels, such as 850 hPa, 500 hPa, and 200 hPa

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

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

Time Range

1991-2020

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 00:51:29.597324; freshness should be verified

Geography

Global