MERRA-2: NASA Global Atmospheric Radiation Diagnostics, 1980-Present

1980-present monthly diurnal means of radiation diagnostics from NASA's MERRA-2 global atmospheric reanalysis. The dataset includes hourly time-averaged fields such as surface albedo, cloud area fraction, and surface incoming shortwave flux, produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the GEOS model. Data is available with a latency of approximately three weeks after the end of each month.

Use Cases

• Modeling Earth's radiative energy budget based on surface incoming shortwave flux and outgoing longwave radiation at the top of atmosphere.
• Analyzing cloud cover and its radiative effects based on cloud area fraction and in-cloud optical thickness.
• Studying surface albedo variations and their impact on climate based on the surface albedo diagnostic.
• Validating climate models using long-term, globally consistent reanalysis data spanning from 1980 to the present.

Strengths

• Covers a long temporal range from 1980 to the present, providing over 40 years of data.
• Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, a authoritative source for atmospheric reanalysis.
• Provides hourly diurnal means for each month, offering detailed temporal resolution for radiation variables.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for specific ML tasks.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO)

Collection Method

Assimilation produced using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4.

Time Range

1980-present

Freshness

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

Geography

Global coverage at 0.625 x 0.5 degree resolution.