MERRA-2 M2TUNXLFO: Monthly Diurnal Land Surface Forcing Parameters

1980-present monthly diurnal means of land surface forcing parameters, such as bias-corrected precipitation and shortwave/longwave radiation. The data is produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) using the GEOS model version 5.12.4. It is time-averaged, 2-dimensional, and has a latency of approximately three weeks after the end of each month.

Use Cases

• Analyzing diurnal cycles of surface radiation based on hourly time-stamped shortwave and longwave radiation fields.
• Modeling hydrological processes based on bias-corrected precipitation data.
• Studying land surface energy balance based on the collection of surface forcing parameters.
• Investigating long-term climate trends from 1980 to present based on the reanalysis time series.

Strengths

• Covers a long temporal range from 1980 to the present.
• Provides hourly-resolution data within monthly means, timestamped from 00:30 to 23:30 UTC.
• Produced by NASA GMAO using the GEOS 5.12.4 model, indicating a high-quality reanalysis source.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data reprocessing may result in filename changes, requiring careful version tracking.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Generated by NASA GMAO using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4.

Time Range

1980-present

Freshness

Updated with a latency of ~3 weeks after the end of a month; last metadata update was 2026-03-13.

Geography

Global, at 0.625 x 0.5 degree resolution.