Climate Data in CEDA Archives

CEDA hold a wide range of climate observation and climate model data. This article will hopefully direct most people to relevant data that we hold and a few hints and tips along the way. However, if you still can't find the data that you need, please feel free to get in touch and we'll do what we can to assist.

Climate Observational Data

The Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia CRU data is an extremely popular high resolution gridded observational climate record. The CRU TS (time-series) data provide month-by-month variations in climate over the last century and the CRU CY data consists of country averages at a monthly, seasonal and annual frequency. The CRU JRA (Japanese reanalysis) data are 6-hourly, land surface, gridded time series of ten meteorological variables. Variables within these datasets include cloud cover, diurnal temperature range, frost day frequency, precipitation, daily mean temperature, monthly average daily maximum temperature, vapour pressure, Potential Evapo-transpiration and wet day frequency. 

The Met Office Hadley Centre (MOHC) provides a number of observational climate records that are available from CEDA including the Central England Temperature ( CET) record, the Hadley Centre Global sea-Ice coverage and Sea Surface Temperature (HadISST1.1) and a gridded dataset of global historical surface temperature anomalies (HadCRUT4) to name a few. A full list of available datasets can be found here: MOHC climate observational data.

Climate Model Data

Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects (CMIP)

The World Climate Research Programme's (WCRP) has coordinated a number of iterations of the Coupled Model Intercomparison (CMIP) Projects. Within the CMIP program leading climate modelling centres around the world performed a set of pre-defined experiments. The climate model output from the simulations of the past, present and future climate is collected and distributed to institutes and individuals outside of the major modelling centres. This allows scientists to perform research of relevance to climate science for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports. Currently at CEDA data is available for: 

  • CMIP3 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3) performed during the years 2005 and 2006 and informed the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).
  • CMIP5 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5) performed during the years 2009 and 2012 and informed the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR5).
    • If you are a JASMIN user see the CMIP5 example analysis article which gives an example of how to access and perform analysis on CMIP5 data.
    • For details on how to find CMIP5 data in the CEDA data catalogue see: CEDA CMIP5 data
  • CMIP6 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6) performed during the years 2019 - present and will inform the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). This project is in progress and data are still being actively retrieved by CEDA, not all datasets are complete. At present data can not be found through the CEDA catalogue but can be obtained from the CEDA data browser or directly from JASMIN at '/badc/cmip6/data/`.  

UK Climate Projections

The UK Climate Projections (UKCP) project provides climate modelling information on plausible changes in 21st century climate for the United Kingdom.

  • UKCIP02: 
    The UK Climate Impacts Programme 2002 (UKCIP02) are a set of climate projections derived from a series of climate modelling experiments commissioned and funded by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), performed by the Hadley Centre and analysed by the Tyndall Centre.
    The UKCIP02 data are comprised of four scenarios of future climate change for the UK based on the understanding of the science of climate change in 2002. The climate change scenarios provide a common starting point for assessing climate change vulnerability, impacts and adaptation in the UK. 
  • UKCP09:
    The UKCP09 data provides users with access to information on plausible changes in 21st century climate for the United Kingdom. UKCP09 provides future climate projections for land and marine regions as well as observed (past) climate data for the UK. UKCP09 was produced in 2009, funded by a number of agencies led by Defra. It is based on sophisticated scientific methods provided by the Met Office, with input from over 30 contributing organisations. UKCP09 can be used to help organisations assess potential impacts of the projected future climate and to explore adaptation options to address those impacts.
  • UKCP18:
    The government-funded UK Climate Projections (or UKCP18) provide the most up-to-date assessment of how the UK climate may change during this century. Developed by the Met Office, the projections include information to support scientific studies, climate change risk assessments and adaptation plans. UKCP18 uses cutting-edge climate science to deliver updates to land and marine climate scenarios out to 2100, including: probabilistic land projections, high-resolution spatially-coherent land simulations and coastal projections related to sea-level rise and storm surge. CEDA plays a pivotal role in UKCP18 by providing both the data archive and tools for interfacing with the data sets. All data is provided in the CF-netCDF format distributed via an Open Government Licence (OGL). CEDA also runs a web-tool to support the projections needed to provide an intuitive interface for selecting data products, tailoring the outputs and enabling batch extractions where required. This solution, the UKCP User Interface, draws together a set of pre-existing technologies in a responsive and scalable web-interface. 
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