GHCN: Global Historical Climate Network with Long-Term Monthly Data

A global network of meteorological stations provides long-term monthly mean data for temperature, precipitation, and pressure. The first version, completed in 1992, contains thousands of stations, with 40% having over 50 years of data and 10% over 100 years. The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center and National Climatic Data Center compiled this data to create a consolidated baseline for climate studies.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term temperature trends based on monthly mean data from thousands of stations.
• Studying global precipitation patterns based on records from over 7,500 stations.
• Investigating atmospheric pressure changes using sea level and station pressure measurements.
• Assessing spatial coverage improvements in climate data for regions like South America, Africa, and Asia.

Strengths

• Contains data from 6,039 temperature, 7,533 precipitation, 1,883 sea level pressure, and 1,873 station pressure stations.
• All stations have at least 10 years of data, with 40% exceeding 50 years and 10% exceeding 100 years.
• Spatial coverage is described as good over most of the globe, with noted improvements over South America, Africa, and Asia.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) and National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)

Collection Method

Consolidation of numerous preexisting national, regional, and global-scale meteorological data sets.

Geography

Global, with good coverage over most of the globe, particularly the United States and central Europe.