Global Soil Parameters for Carbon and Land Surface Modeling

Soil parameters from the Harmonized World Soil Database v1.2 provide global data for modeling carbon cycles and assessing land competition. The dataset includes 27 high-resolution NetCDF files at 0.05-degree resolution and one file regridded for the Community Land Model. It is sourced from NASA and represents the nominal year 2000.

Use Cases

• Modeling global soil organic carbon storage using area weighted soil organic carbon (kg C per m2) parameters.
• Assessing land competition for food production and bio-energy using global soil property maps.
• Providing input data for the Community Land Model (CLM) via the regridded 0.9x1.25 degree resolution file.
• Analyzing threats to biodiversity by integrating soil cation exchange capacity and organic matter data.

Strengths

• Provides 27 distinct global soil parameter files at a high 0.05-degree spatial resolution.
• Includes a specific file regridded to the Community Land Model (CLM) grid for direct model integration.
• Sourced from the authoritative Harmonized World Soil Database v1.2 and published by NASA.

Limitations

• Key metadata conflicts exist: the nominal data year is 2000, but one platform lists a last updated date of 2026, suggesting possible metadata errors.
• Specific column names and row/size counts are not provided by any source.
• Data is from a single nominal year (2000), limiting temporal analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); Harmonized World Soil Database v1.2.

Collection Method

Data were regridded and upscaled from the source database to create NetCDF files.

Time Range

2000

Freshness

2026-03-12 22:31:11.172971

Geography

Global