Monthly Atmospheric Moisture Tendencies at Pressure Levels from 1980 to Present

MERRA-2 provides a global atmospheric reanalysis from 1980 to the present, with data latency of about three weeks after each month. NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office produced this collection using the GEOS 5.12.4 model. The M2TMNPQDT dataset contains 3D monthly mean assimilations of moist tendencies across 42 pressure levels.

Use Cases

• Analyze the total specific humidity analysis tendency to study global moisture source and sink regions.
• Model atmospheric dynamics by using the tendency of ice water due to dynamics as a forcing variable.
• Validate climate model outputs against the total liquid water tendency due to moist processes.
• Investigate cloud microphysics by examining variance parameters included in the collection.

Strengths

• Covers a long-term period from 1980 to present, enabling climate trend analysis.
• Provides data on 42 pressure levels for detailed vertical atmospheric profiling.
• Produced by NASA GMAO using a state-of-the-art assimilation system (GEOS 5.12.4).

Limitations

• Specific row counts, file sizes, and spatial resolution details for this subset are not provided.
• Data is reprocessed, and filename changes can create version management challenges.
• The ~3-week latency means it is not suitable for real-time weather forecasting.

Provenance

Source

NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) via the GES DISC.

Collection Method

Assimilation of observational data using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4.

Time Range

1980 to present.

Freshness

Updated monthly with a ~3-week latency.

Geography

Global coverage at 0.625 x 0.5 degree resolution.