Identification

Title

Global Atmospheric Circulation Statistics, 1958-1989

Alternative title(s)

d217001

Abstract

<p>Twenty-two monthly statistical quantities make up this dataset of grids which describes the atmospheric general circulation at eleven vertical levels across the troposphere and stratosphere over a 32-year period. These gridded analyses, created from upper air soundings across the globe, span the period from May 1958 to December 1989. The statistical parameters, which are useful for comparing climate model simulations to actual observations, include monthly means and variances of horizontal and vertical wind, temperature, geopotential height, moisture, and horizontal wind divergence. There are also covariance terms describing the relationship between wind, temperature, moisture, and geopotential height. In general, the analyses near the surface of the earth (900mb and below) tend to be less reliable than those of the higher levels because the individual rawinsonde reports are often incomplete due to missing 1000mb reports.</p>

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d217001/

protocol: https

name: Dataset Description

description: Related Link

function: information

https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d217001/dataaccess/

protocol: https

name: Data Access

description: Related Link

function: download

Unique resource identifier

code

codeSpace

Dataset language

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

dataset

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2021-03-30

Keyword set

keyword value

MODELS > MODELS

originating controlled vocabulary

title

U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Global Change Master Directory

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2025-10-03

Keyword set

keyword value

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ALTITUDE > GEOPOTENTIAL HEIGHT

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > UPPER AIR TEMPERATURE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > HUMIDITY

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > UPPER LEVEL WINDS

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > WIND DYNAMICS > CONVERGENCE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > WIND DYNAMICS > VERTICAL WIND VELOCITY/SPEED

originating controlled vocabulary

title

U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Global Change Master Directory

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2025-10-03

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-180.0

East bounding longitude

180.0

North bounding latitude

90.0

South bounding latitude

-90.0

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

1958-05-01T0000+00

End position

1990-01-01T0000+00

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

1994-12-12

Frequency of update

notPlanned

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

email address

datahelp@ucar.edu

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange

email address

datahelp@ucar.edu

web address

https://gdex.ucar.edu

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

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-10-09T01:30:22Z

Metadata language

eng; USA