MERRA-2 M2TMNXINT: Monthly Global Water and Energy Fluxes

NASA's MERRA-2 reanalysis provides monthly averaged, vertically integrated diagnostics for water and energy cycles globally from 1980 to present. The dataset includes parameters such as autoconversion loss of cloud water, convective source of cloud ice, and eastward/northward fluxes of atmospheric constituents. Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the GEOS model, data is updated with a latency of approximately three weeks after each month.

Use Cases

• Modeling global atmospheric water cycles based on vertically integrated diagnostics.
• Analyzing long-term trends in cloud microphysics based on autoconversion loss of cloud water.
• Studying atmospheric energy transport based on eastward and northward flux parameters.
• Investigating convective processes in the atmosphere based on convective source of cloud ice.
• Calculating total potential energy tendencies for climate system studies.

Strengths

• Data covers a long temporal range from 1980 to present.
• Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, a leading authority.
• Includes variance parameters for certain diagnostics, which may aid uncertainty analysis.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is provided in specialized formats like BIN and ISO, which may require specific tools.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Generated by the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4 as part of the MERRA-2 reanalysis.

Time Range

1980-present

Freshness

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

Geography

Global, 0.625 x 0.5 degree resolution