ERA5 Reanalysis Monthly Means
d630001
<p>Please note: Please use ds633.1 to access RDA maintained ERA-5 Monthly Mean data, see ERA5 Reanalysis (Monthly Mean 0.25 Degree Latitude-Longitude Grid), RDA dataset ds633.1. This dataset is no longer being updated, and web access has been removed.</p> <p>After many years of research and technical preparation, the production of a new ECMWF climate reanalysis to replace ERA-Interim is in progress. ERA5 is the fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate, which started with the FGGE reanalyses produced in the 1980s, followed by ERA-15, ERA-40 and most recently ERA-Interim. ERA5 will cover the period January 1950 to near real time, though the first segment of data to be released will span the period 2010-2016.</p> <p>ERA5 is produced using high-resolution forecasts (HRES) at 31 kilometer resolution (one fourth the spatial resolution of the operational model) and a 62 kilometer resolution ten member 4D-Var ensemble of data assimilation (EDA) in CY41r2 of ECMWF's Integrated Forecast System (IFS) with 137 hybrid sigma-pressure (model) levels in the vertical, up to a top level of 0.01 hPa. Atmospheric data on these levels are interpolated to 37 pressure levels (the same levels as in ERA-Interim). Surface or single level data are also available, containing 2D parameters such as precipitation, 2 meter temperature, top of atmosphere radiation and vertical integrals over the entire atmosphere. The IFS is coupled to a soil model, the parameters of which are also designated as surface parameters, and an ocean wave model. Generally, the data is available at an hourly frequency and consists of analyses and short (18 hour) forecasts, initialized twice daily from analyses at 06 and 18 UTC. Most analyses parameters are also available from the forecasts. There are a number of forecast parameters, e.g. mean rates and accumulations, that are not available from the analyses. Together, the hourly analysis and twice daily forecast parameters form the basis of the <b>monthly means</b> (and <b>monthly diurnal means</b>) found in this dataset.</p> <p>Improvements to ERA5, compared to ERA-Interim, include use of HadISST.2, reprocessed ECMWF climate data records (CDR), and implementation of RTTOV11 radiative transfer. Variational bias corrections have not only been applied to satellite radiances, but also ozone retrievals, aircraft observations, surface pressure, and radiosonde profiles.</p> <p>NCAR's Data Support Section (DSS) is performing and supplying a grid transformed version of ERA5, in which variables originally represented as spectral coefficients or archived on a reduced Gaussian grid are transformed to a regular 1280 longitude by 640 latitude N320 Gaussian grid. In addition, DSS is also computing horizontal winds (u-component, v-component) from spectral vorticity and divergence where these are available. Finally, the data is reprocessed into single parameter time series.</p> <p><font color="red">Please note:</font> As of November 2017, DSS is also producing a CF 1.6 compliant netCDF-4/HDF5 version of ERA5 for CISL RDA at NCAR. The netCDF-4/HDF5 version is the <i>de facto</i> RDA ERA5 <i>online</i> data format. The GRIB1 data format is only available via NCAR's High Performance Storage System (HPSS). We encourage users to evaluate the netCDF-4/HDF5 version for their work, and to use the currently existing GRIB1 files as a reference and basis of comparison. To ease this transition, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the netCDF-4/HDF5 and GRIB1 files, with as much GRIB1 metadata as possible incorporated into the attributes of the netCDF-4/HDF5 counterpart.</p>
dataset
https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d630001/
protocol: https
name: Dataset Description
description: Related Link
function: information
https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d630001/dataaccess/
protocol: https
name: Data Access
description: Related Link
function: download
climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere
dataset
revision
2021-03-30
REANALYSIS MODELS
revision
2025-10-03
ERA5 > ECWMF ERA5 Reanalysis
revision
2025-10-03
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > SOILS > SOIL TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > CLOUDS > CLOUD MICROPHYSICS > CLOUD LIQUID WATER/ICE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > SEA LEVEL PRESSURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > SURFACE WINDS
EARTH SCIENCE > TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > SNOW/ICE TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > SURFACE RADIATIVE PROPERTIES > ALBEDO
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > SOILS > SOIL CLASSIFICATION
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > WATER VAPOR
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > TOPOGRAPHY > SURFACE ROUGHNESS
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > SURFACE THERMAL PROPERTIES > SKIN TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > AIR QUALITY > TROPOSPHERIC OZONE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > HUMIDITY
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION > HEAT FLUX
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > UPPER LEVEL WINDS
EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > VEGETATION > VEGETATION COVER
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > DEW POINT TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > TOPOGRAPHY > TERRAIN ELEVATION
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ALTITUDE > PLANETARY BOUNDARY LAYER HEIGHT
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > WIND DYNAMICS > VERTICAL WIND VELOCITY/SPEED
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > WIND DYNAMICS > VORTICITY
EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > SEA ICE > ICE EXTENT
EARTH SCIENCE > TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > ALBEDO
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > UPPER AIR TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > SNOW DEPTH
EARTH SCIENCE > CRYOSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > SNOW/ICE TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > WIND DYNAMICS > CONVERGENCE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > CLOUDS > CLOUD PROPERTIES > CLOUD FREQUENCY
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > SURFACE PRESSURE
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > SOILS > SOIL MOISTURE/WATER CONTENT
EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN TEMPERATURE > SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > TOTAL PRECIPITABLE WATER
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ALTITUDE > GEOPOTENTIAL HEIGHT
EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > VEGETATION > VEGETATION SPECIES
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > WIND DYNAMICS > CONVECTION
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > WIND DYNAMICS > WIND STRESS
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > SURFACE TEMPERATURE > AIR TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > SNOW DENSITY
revision
2025-10-03
-180.0
180.0
89.785
-89.785
2008-01-01T0000+00
2017-12-31T2300+00
publication
2017-10-06
monthly
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
None
pointOfContact
NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange
name: NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange
description: The Geoscience Data Exchange (GDEX), managed by the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) at NSF NCAR, contains a large collection of meteorological, atmospheric composition, and oceanographic observations, and operational and reanalysis model outputs, integrated with NSF NCAR High Performance Compute services to support atmospheric and geosciences research.
function: download
pointOfContact
2025-10-09T01:28:05Z