MERRA-2 M2TMNXFLX: Monthly Surface Flux Diagnostics for Global Climate Reanalysis

Monthly mean assimilated surface flux diagnostics from NASA's MERRA-2 global atmospheric reanalysis. The dataset covers the period from 1980 to the present, with a latency of approximately three weeks after each month. It is produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the GEOS version 5.12.4 model.

Use Cases

• Modeling global precipitation trends based on assimilated total precipitation data.
• Analyzing surface air temperature variability for climate change research.
• Studying surface wind patterns and their impact on evaporation from turbulence.
• Investigating surface specific humidity changes over the satellite era.
• Calibrating hydrological models using bias-corrected total precipitation estimates.

Strengths

• Dataset covers a long temporal range from 1980 to the present.
• Data is produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO), a authoritative source.
• Includes variance of certain parameters, which may be useful for uncertainty analysis.
• The model surface layer height (~60 meters) is documented.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data reprocessing history exists; users must check documentation for filename changes.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Assimilated reanalysis produced by the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4.

Time Range

1980-present

Freshness

Updated monthly with ~3 week latency; last metadata update was 2026-03-13.

Geography

Global, 0.625 x 0.5 degree resolution