IIASA Mean Monthly Temperature on a Global Terrestrial Grid

The IIASA Climate Database provides mean monthly temperature values for a global terrestrial grid. It contains nearly 6300 records representing monthly averages calculated from historical weather records primarily between 1930 and 1960. The dataset was created by Rik Leemans and Wolfgang P. Cramer at the International Institute for Applied System Analyses (IIASA) and published in 1991.

Use Cases

• Modeling vegetation distribution based on historical temperature patterns.
• Analyzing regional climate trends for agricultural planning.
• Providing baseline climate data for ecological and biogeographical studies.
• Calibrating or validating climate models at a regional scale.

Strengths

• Data is standardized and interpolated to a consistent half-degree latitude/longitude terrestrial grid.
• Coverage is strongest for Europe, the USA, southern Canada, East Asia, and Japan.
• Values are derived from weather records covering at least five years, providing a multi-year average.

Limitations

• Data coverage is less complete for Africa, Australia, high latitude, arid, and mountainous zones.
• Last updated 1990-01-01 23:59:59.999000; freshness should be verified.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

International Institute for Applied System Analyses (IIASA), created by Rik Leemans and Wolfgang P. Cramer.

Collection Method

Values calculated from existing historical weather records, standardized, ranked in quality, selected, interpolated, and smoothed.

Time Range

Primarily covers the period between 1930 and 1960.

Geography

Global terrestrial grid (land areas only), with best coverage in Europe, USA, southern Canada, East Asia, and Japan.