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ISLSCP II Global Precipitation Climatology Project Version 1, Pentad Precipitation
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Revision date: March 31, 2020

Summary:

The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) pentad version 1 precipitation data set includes global precipitation rates for 5-day, or pentad, periods. The data are derived from measured rain gauge data and merged with satellite estimates of rainfall. This is a portion of the version 1 GPCP pentad data and covers the ISLSCP II period from 1986 to 1995. The original precipitation rates at 2.5 degrees were re-gridded to a 1 degree spatial resolution by the ISLSCP II staff.

The original GPCP pentad product used to create this data set has been superseded by a newer version: the GPCP Pentad Version 2.2 (Xie et al., 2011) available at the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (https://data.nodc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/iso?id=gov.noaa.ncdc:C00933#).

Additional Documentation:

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 the companion file 1_gpcp_precip_pentad_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) (https://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.

The original GPCP pentad product used to create this data set has been superseded by a newer version: the GPCP Pentad Version 2.2 (Xie et al., 2011) available at the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (https://data.nodc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/iso?id=gov.noaa.ncdc:C00933#).

Data Citation:

Cite this data set as follows:

P. Xie. 2011. ISLSCP II Global Precipitation Climatology Project Version 1, Pentad Precipitation. 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. doi:10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1002

File Information:

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

Projection: Geographic

Data Set Spatial Resolution: 1 degree and 2.5 degrees 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.The data files in this data set are provided at 1 degree spatial resolution. The original files are provided as well at 2.5 degrees spatial resolution.

gpcp_precip_pentad_1d_YYYY.zip: There are 10 files with YYYY representing the years 1986 through 1995. When expanded, these 10 files contain 730 files named gpcp_pentad_1d_YYYYMMDD.asc with precipitation rates (mm/day) at 1 degree resolution. Files are named such that YYYY is from 1986 to 1995, MM is the month from 01 to 12, and DD is the day for the starting date of the 5 day period that makes up each pentad.

gpcp_precip_pentad_orig_YYYY.zip: There are 10 files with YYYY representing the years 1986 through 1995. When expanded, these 10 files contain 730 files named gpcp_pentad_orig_YYYYMMDD.asc with original precipitation rates (mm/day) at 2.5 degree resolution. Files are named such that YYYY is fron 1986 to 1995, MM is the month from 01 to 12, and DD is the day for the starting date of the 5 day period that makes up each pentad.

Data file naming conventions are further described in the 1_gpcp_precip_pentad_doc.pdf and 0_gpcp_precip_pentad_readme.txt.

References:

Hall, F.G., de Colstoun, E.B., Collatz, G.J., Landis, D., Dirmeyer, P., Betts, A., Huffman, G.J., Bounoua, L., and Meeson, B. 2006. ISLSCP Initiative II global data sets: Surface boundary conditions and atmospheric forcings for land‐atmosphere studies. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 111(D22). https://doi.org/10.1029/2006JD007366.

Xie, P., Janowiak, J.E., Arkin, P.A., Adler, R., Gruber, A., Ferraro, R., Huffman, G.J., and Curtis, S. 2003. GPCP pentad precipitation analyses: An experimental dataset based on gauge observations and satellite estimates. Journal of Climate, 16(13):2197-2214. https://doi.org/10.1175/2769.1.
Xie, P., Adler, R.F., Huffman, G.J., and Bolvin, D. 2011. Global precipitation climatology project—Pentad, Version 2. National Centers for Environmental Information. https://data.nodc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/iso?id=gov.noaa.ncdc:C00933#.

Data Access:

These data are available through the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) (https://daac.ornl.gov/).

Contact for Data Center Access Information: