NLDAS VIC: Monthly Land Surface Model Data for North America

Forty-three fields simulated from the VIC land-surface model for the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS-2). The data are in 1/8th degree grid spacing and range from January 1979 to present, with a monthly temporal resolution. This data set was generated by NASA and is provided in netCDF format.

Use Cases

• Modeling long-term hydrological cycles based on monthly rainfall and snowfall accumulation data.
• Analyzing land surface energy and water fluxes based on variables like total evapotranspiration and runoff.
• Studying soil moisture and temperature trends for climate impact assessments.
• Validating other climate or weather models against a high-resolution, long-term land surface simulation.

Strengths

• Provides a long-term record from January 1979 to present.
• Offers high spatial resolution at 1/8th degree grid spacing.
• Contains forty-three distinct simulated fields covering hydrological and surface variables.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The first month (January 1979) has a one-hour offset in its averaging period, as noted in the description.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Simulated from the VIC land-surface model for Phase 2 of the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS-2).

Time Range

January 1979 to present

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 23:18:35.717768; freshness should be verified.

Geography

North America (implied by NLDAS scope)