The following observed datasets may be of use to researchers using NARCCAP data.

CPC: National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center Retrospective Analysis

NWS unified daily precipitation analysis, covering most of North America (lat. 20:60, lon. 220:300).

Homepage: http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/realtime/retro.shtml
Data Access: http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cdc/data.unified.html
Other: Additional analyses are available via anonymous ftp at: ftp://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/precip/wd52ws/ .These files are not in NetCDF format, but a binary format described in a readme file.

• U.S. hourly precipitation (HPD) analysis (1948-September, 2002) - hpd
• U.S. daily precipitation analysis (realtime,January,1996-present) - us_daily
• US_Mexico daily precipitation analysis (retrospective, 1948-2005) - us-mex
• Brazil daily precipitation analysis (retrospective, 1948-July 2005)(2005 version) - brazil
• South American daily precipitation analysis (realtime,January 1,2000-present) - SA
• Retrospective South American daily precipitation analysis (1978-2004) - SA/historical

CRU: The UEA Climatic Research Unit's Global Climate Dataset

Monthly mean timeseries for global land areas (except Antarctica). Available variables: cloud cover, diurnal temperature range, frost days, precipitation, daily minimum temperature, daily mean temperature, daily maximum temperature, vapour pressure, and wet days.

Homepage: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timm/grid/CRU_TS_2_1.html
Data Access: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg/cru_ts_2.10/
References: http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/working_papers/wp55_summary.shtml
Other:

• IPCC overview of the dataset: http://www.ipcc-data.org/obs/cru_climatologies.html
• Other datasets available from CRU: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg.htm

Daymet: Daily Surface Weather Data and Climatological Summaries

Daymet is a model that generates daily values for minimum, maximum and average temperature, precipitation, water vapor pressure, solar radiation, and length of day, based on observations and topography. Variables are interpolated to 1 kilometer resolution. The web interface allows retrieval of the timeseries of values for a single point at a time.

Homepage: http://www.daymet.org/
Data Access: http://www.daymet.org/dataSelection.jsp
References: http://www.daymet.org/literature.jsp

GHCN: Global Historic Climatology Network

Station data: historical temperature and precipitation measurements for thousands of land stations worldwide. The period of record varies from station to station. Density is best over North America. Minimum and maximum temperature and sea level pressure measurements are also available for some stations.

Homepage: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/climate/research/ghcn/ghcn.html
Data Access: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2/

GPCC: Global Precipitation Climatology Centre

Gridded rain gauge analysis products. Several different products with different spatio-temporal coverage and resolution, optimized for different uses.

Homepage: http://gpcc.dwd.de
Data Access: ftp://ftp-anon.dwd.de/pub/data/gpcc/html/fulldata_download.html
References: Click on "Product Info" on the GPCC homepage.
Other: Online data visualizer

NARR: NCEP North American Regional Reanalysis

A North American reanalysis building on NCEP that assimilates many additional data sources, including PRISM, CMAP, TOVS, and satellite data. A total of 187 variables are available. Coverage: Longitude: -220°:-0.625°; Latitude: 0°: 89.625°

Homepage: http://wwwt.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/mmb/rreanl/
Data Access: http://dss.ucar.edu/pub/narr/

NCEP2: NCEP-DOE Reanalysis 2

NCEP2 is an improved version of the NCEP Reanalysis I model that fixes errors and updates paramterizations of physical processes. This is the dataset that was used to drive the RCMs in Phase I of NARCCAP. Monthly, daily, and 4x daily data available for a wide variety of variables. Online plotting and subsetting available for most data.

Homepage: http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cdc/data.ncep.reanalysis2.html
Data Access: http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cdc/data.ncep.reanalysis2.html
References:

• http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/wesley/reanalysis2/kana/reanl2-1.htm
• NCEP-DEO AMIP-II Reanalysis (R-2): M. Kanamitsu, W. Ebisuzaki, J. Woollen, S-K Yang, J.J. Hnilo, M. Fiorino, and G. L. Potter. 1631-1643, Nov 2002, Bul. of the Atmos. Met. Soc.

PRISM: Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model

Extremely high-resolution gridded precipitation & temperature extreme data extending back to the late 1800s. Some online mapping and visualization capability.

Homepage: http://www.prism.oregonstate.edu
Data Access: http://www.prism.oregonstate.edu/products/matrix.phtml
References: http://www.prism.oregonstate.edu/docs/

U. Del: Data from Willmott, Matsuura, and Collaborators at University of Delaware

Global half-degree monthly and annual climatologies and time series for temperature and precipitation from 1900-2006.

Homepage: http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate
Data Access: http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate/html_pages/archive.html (Please register first)
References: http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate/publication_html/index.html

UW: Gridded Meteorological Data from the University of Washington

1/8-degree daily and monthly gridded data for precipitation, min and max temperature, and wind speed. Binary format data is grouped by basin/region and extends through 2005 in some areas. NetCDF data covers the entire region and runs from 1950-1999.

Homepage: http://www.hydro.washington.edu/Lettenmaier/Data/gridded/
Data Access:

• Binary: http://www.hydro.washington.edu/Lettenmaier/Data/gridded/index_maurer.html
• NetCDF: http://www.engr.scu.edu/~emaurer/data.shtml

References:Maurer, E.P., A.W. Wood, J.C. Adam, D.P. Lettenmaier, and B. Nijssen, 2002, A Long-Term Hydrologically-Based Data Set of Land Surface Fluxes and States for the Conterminous United States, J. Climate 15, 3237-3251.