UKCP09: 5km Gridded Annual Growing Degree Days for the UK

UK climate data provides annual averages of growing degree days on a 5km grid. The dataset contains 12 files, one for each month, representing the 1961-1990 average period. It was created with support from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and promoted by the UK Climate Impacts Programme.

Use Cases

• Modeling crop growth potential based on gridded growing degree day data.
• Analyzing historical climate patterns for the 1961-1990 period across the UK.
• Assessing regional agricultural suitability based on monthly climate averages.

Strengths

• Data is gridded at a 5km spatial resolution.
• Covers a 30-year historical baseline period (1961-1990).
• Contains 12 separate monthly average files.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Met Office, with support from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Collection Method

Likely derived from meteorological station observations interpolated to a grid.

Time Range

1961-1990 average.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:30:58.514770; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United Kingdom.