WATer and global CHange (WATCH) Forcing Data (WFD) - 20th Century

New global sub-daily meteorological forcing data are provided for use with land surface and hydrological-models. The data are derived from the ERA-40 reanalysis product via sequential interpolation to half-degree resolution, elevation correction and monthly-scale adjustments based on CRU (corrected-temperature, diurnal temperature range, cloud-cover) and GPCC (precipitation) monthly observations combined with new corrections for varying atmospheric aerosol-loading and separate precipitation gauge corrections for rainfall and snowfall. The WATCH Forcing data is a twentieth century meteorological forcing dataset for land surface and hydrological models. It consists of three of 6-hourly states of the weather for global half-degree land grid points. It was generated as part of the EU FP 6 project "WATCH" (WATer and global CHange") which ran from 2007-2011. The data was generated in 2 time periods with slightly different methodology: 1901-1957 and 1958-2001, but generally the dataset can be considered as continuous. More details regarding the generation process can be found in the associated WATCH technical report and paper in J. Hydrometeorology. The data covers land points only and excludes the Antarctica.

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Temporal Range

  • Begin:  1901-01-01T0000+00
    End:  2001-12-31T2230+00

Keywords

Resource Type dataset
Temporal Range Begin 1901-01-01T0000+00
Temporal Range End 2001-12-31T2230+00
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat 90.0
Bounding Box South Lat -90.0
Bounding Box West Long -180.0
Bounding Box East Long 180.0
Spatial Representation grid
Spatial Resolution 0.5 degree
Related Links N/A
Additional Information N/A
Resource Format NetCDF
Standardized Resource Format NetCDF
Asset Size 1383547.056 MB
Legal Constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name N/A
Resource Support Email datahelp@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization N/A
Distributor NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email datahelp@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange

Author Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, Met Office, Ministry of Defence, United Kingdom
Publisher NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research
Publication Date 2018-02-11
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) https://doi.org/10.5065/1B5Z-KQ51
Alternate Identifier d314001
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere
Progress completed
Metadata Date 2025-10-22T20:18:40Z
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.gdex::d314001
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, Met Office, Ministry of Defence, United Kingdom. (2018). WATer and global CHange (WATCH) Forcing Data (WFD) - 20th Century. NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research. https://doi.org/10.5065/1B5Z-KQ51. Accessed 25 October 2025.

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