The University of New Hampshire (UNH)/Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) composite runoff data combines simulated water balance model runoff estimates derived from climate forcing with monitored river discharge. It can be viewed as a data assimilation applied in a water balance model context (conceptually similar to the commonly used 4DDA techniques used in meteorological modeling). Such a data assimilation scheme preserves the spatial specificity of the water balance calculations while constrained by the more accurate discharge measurement. There are 11 data files in this data set and 1 changemap file which shows the differences between the ISLSCP II land/water mask and the original data set.
This data set is one of the products of the International Satellite Land-Surface Climatology Project, Initiative II (ISLSCP II) data collection which contains 50 global time series data sets for the ten-year period 1986 to 1995. A complete description of the data, it's derivation, acknowledgements, and references provided by the ISLSCP II Data Management Staff is included with this data set as a companion file named 1_comp_runoff_month_doc.pdf.
ISLSCP II is a consistent collection of data sets that were compiled from existing data sources and algorithms, and were designed to satisfy the needs of modelers and investigators of the global carbon, water and energy cycle. The data were acquired from a number of U.S. and international agencies, universities, and institutions. The data and documentation have undergone two peer reviews.
ISLSCP is one of several projects of Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) [http://www.gewex.org/] and has the lead role in addressing land-atmosphere interactions -- process modeling, data retrieval algorithms, field experiment design and execution, and the development of global data sets.
Cite this data set as follows:
Fekete, B., T. Maurer, and C. J. Vörösmarty. 2011. ISLSCP II UNH/GRDC Composite Monthly Runoff. In Hall, Forrest G., G. Collatz, B. Meeson, S. Los, E. Brown de Colstoun, and D. Landis (eds.). ISLSCP Initiative II Collection. Data set. Available on-line [http://daac.ornl.gov/] from Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A. Data set. Available on-line [http://daac.ornl.gov/] from Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A. doi:10.3334/ORNLDAAC/994
The archived data sets for ISLSCP II have been organized by categories. This data set is in the Hydrology, Soils, and Topography category-- a collection of hydroclimatology and surface elevation data sets.
Data Set Spatial Extent: Global gridded
Westernmost Longitude: -180 W
Easternmost Longitude: 180 E
Northernmost Latitude: 90 N
Southernmost Latitude: -90 S
Projection: Geographic
Data Set Spatial Resolution: 1.0 degree and 0.5 degree in both latitude and longitude
Data Set Temporal Extent: 1986 through 1995
Data File Format
All of the data files in each data set within the ISLSCP Initiative II data collection are in ASCII GRID format. The file format consists of numerical fields of varying length, which are delimited by a single space and arranged in columns and rows. There are 12 files with this data set, with 8 data files in 1.0 degree (1deg) and 0.5 degree (hdeg) resolution, 2 .dat comma-delimited files, and 1 changemap file:
File names and descriptions:
Please refer to 1_comp_runoff_month_doc.pdf and 0_comp_runoff_month_readme.txt for a more complete description of the data files and naming conventions.
Fekete, B. M., C. J. Vörösmarty, W. Grabs (2002) High Resolution Fields of Global Runoff Combining Observed River Discharge and Simulated Water Balances, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 16(3). doi:10.1029/1999GB001254
These data are available through the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) [http://daac.ornl.gov].
E-mail: uso@daac.ornl.gov
Telephone: +1 (865) 241-3952