Revision Date: October 21, 2008

Global Historical Climatology Network, 1753-1990

Summary:

This data set contains monthly temperature, precipitation, sea-level pressure, and station-pressure data for thousands of meteorological stations worldwide. The database was compiled from pre-existing national, regional, and global collections of data as part of the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) project, the goal of which is to produce, maintain, and make available a comprehensive global surface baseline climate data set for monitoring climate and detecting climate change. It contains data from roughly 6000 temperature stations, 7500 precipitation stations, 1800 sea level pressure stations, and 1800 station pressure stations. Each station has at least 10 years of data, 40% have more than 50 years of data. Spatial coverage is good over most of the globe, particularly for the United States and Europe. Data gaps are evident over the Amazon rainforest, the Sahara desert, Greenland, and Antarctica.

GHCN Temperature Stations

GHCN Precipitation Stations

The earliest station data are from 1697; the most recent from 1990. The database was created from 15 source data sets, including:

Quality Control of the database included visual inspection of graphs of all station time series, tests for precipitation digitized 6 months out of phase, tests for different stations having identical data, and other tests. This detailed analysis has revealed that most stations (95% for temperature and precipitation; 75% for pressure) contain high-quality data. However, gross data-processing errors (e.g., keypunch problems) and discontinuous inhomogeneities (e.g., station relocations and instrumentation changes) do characterize a small number of stations. All major data processing problems have been flagged (or corrected, when possible). Similarly, all major inhomogeneities have been flagged, although no homogeneity corrections were applied.

Data Citation

Cite this data set as follows (citation revised on June 27, 2002):

Vose, R. S., R. L. Schmoyer, P. M. Steurer, T. C. Peterson, R. Heim, T. R. Karl, and J. K. Eischeid. 1998. Global Historical Climatology Network, 1753-1990. Data set. Available on-line [http://www.daac.ornl.gov] from Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A. Previously published as The Global Historical Climatology Network: Long-Term Monthly Temperature, Precipitation, Sea Level Pressure, and Station Pressure Data, ORNL/CDIAC-53, CDIAC NDP-041, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A., 1992. doi:10.3334/ORNLDAAC/220.

References:

Vose, R. S., R. L. Schmoyer, P. M. Steurer, T. C. Peterson, R. Heim, T. R. Karl, and J. K. Eischeid. 1992. The Global Historical Climatology Network; Long-Term Monthly Temperature, Precipitation, Sea Level Pressure, and Station Pressure Data. ORNL/CDIAC-53, NDP-041. Available on-line [http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ndp041/ndp041.html] from Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A.

Data Format:

For information on parameter/variable names, variable description/definition, units of measurement, code definitions, and data file formats, see the companion file ndp041.doc [http://daac.ornl.gov/global_climate/ndp041/comp/ndp041.doc].

Document Information:

Document Revision Date:

July 1992 (Note: Citation revised on June 27, 2002)

Document Curator:

webmaster@.daac.ornl.gov

Document URL:

http://daac.ornl.gov/CLIMATE/guides/ghcn.html
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Revision Date: October 21, 2008