MERRA-2 M2TUNPRAD: Monthly Diurnal Atmospheric Radiation Diagnostics

M2TUNPRAD is a 3-dimensional monthly diurnal means data collection from NASA's Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2). It contains assimilations of radiation diagnostics on 42 pressure levels, such as cloud fraction for radiation and air temperature tendencies due to longwave and shortwave radiation. The dataset covers the period from 1980 to the present and is produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the GEOS version 5.12.4 model.

Use Cases

• Modeling atmospheric radiative energy budgets based on assimilated radiation diagnostics.
• Analyzing cloud fraction trends for radiation based on the cloud fraction variable.
• Studying air temperature tendencies based on longwave and shortwave radiation contributions.
• Investigating diurnal cycles of atmospheric variables based on 3-hourly time-stamped monthly means.

Strengths

• Data spans from 1980 to present, providing a long-term climate record.
• Contains assimilated variables on 42 distinct pressure levels.
• Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, an authoritative source.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data has a latency of approximately 3 weeks after the end of a month.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Assimilated reanalysis produced by NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4.

Time Range

1980-present

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 00:27:15.471968; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global, 0.625 x 0.5 degree resolution