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SAFARI 2000 GLOBAL HISTORICAL CLIMATOLOGY NETWORK, V. 1, 1874-1990

Entry ID: s2k_ghcn_v1

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Summary

Abstract: This data set consists of a southern African subset of the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) Version 1 database. All stations with the following bounding coordinates are included in this subset: 5W - 60E and 5N - 35S. There are three files available, one each for precipitation, temperature, and pressure data. Within this subset the oldest data date from 1874 and the most recent from ... 1990. The GHCN V1 database contains monthly temperature, precipitation, sea-level pressure, and station-pressure data for thousands of meteorological stations worldwide. The database was compiled from pre-existing national, regional, and global collections of data as part of the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) project, the goal of which is to produce, maintain and make available a comprehensive global surface baseline climate data set for monitoring climate and detecting climate change. It contains data from roughly 6000 temperature stations, 7500 precipitation stations, 1800 sea-level pressure stations, and 1800 station-pressure stations. Each station has at least 10 years of data; 40% have more than 50 years of data. Spatial coverage is good over most of the globe, particularly for the United States and Europe. Data gaps are evident over the Amazon rainforest, the Sahara desert, Greenland, and Antarctica. The earliest station data are from 1697; the most recent are from 1990. The database was created from 15 source data sets including: The National Climatic Data Center's (NCDC's) World Weather Records, CAC's Climate Anomaly Monitoring System (CAMS), NCAR's World Monthly Surface Station Climatology, CIRES' (Eischeid/Diaz) Global precipitation data set, P. Jones' Temperature data base for the world, and S. Nicholson's African precipitation database. Quality Control of the database included visual inspection of graphs of all station time series, tests for precipitation digitized 6 months out of phase, tests for different stations having identical data, and other tests. This detailed analysis has revealed that most stations (95% for temperature and precipitation, 75% for pressure) contain high-quality data. However, gross data-processing errors (e.g., keypunch problems) and discontinuous inhomogeneities (e.g., station relocations and instrumentation changes) do characterize a small number of stations. All major data processing problems have been flagged (or corrected, when possible). Similarly, all major inhomogeneities have been flagged, although no homogeneity corrections were applied. More information can be found at: ftp://daac.ornl.gov/data/safari2k/climate_meteorology/ghcn/comp/ghc...

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Description: SAFARI 2000 GLOBAL HISTORICAL CLIMATOLOGY NETWORK, V. 1, 1874-1990

Geographic Coverage

(Click for Interactive Map)

Spatial coordinates

N: 5.0

S: -35.0

E: 60.0

W: -5.0

Data Set Citation

Dataset Originator/Creator: EISCHEID, J.K.HEIM, R.KARL, T.R.PETERSON, T.C.SCHMOYER, R.L.STEURER, P.M.VOSE, R.S.

Dataset Title: SAFARI 2000 GLOBAL HISTORICAL CLIMATOLOGY NETWORK, V. 1, 1874-1990

Dataset Release Date: 2002

Dataset Release Place: Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A.

Dataset Publisher: Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center

Data Presentation Form: Online Files

Dataset DOI: doi:10.3334/ORNLDAAC/631

Online Resource: http://mercury.ornl.gov/ornldaac/send/query?term2=631&term2attribut...

Temporal Coverage

Start Date: 1874-07-01

Stop Date: 1990-12-31

Location Keywords

CONTINENT > AFRICA > SOUTHERN AFRICA

Science Keywords

ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > SEA LEVEL PRESSURE

ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > SURFACE PRESSURE

ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > AIR TEMPERATURE

ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > PRECIPITATION AMOUNT

ISO Topic Category

CLIMATOLOGY/METEOROLOGY/ATMOSPHERE

Platform

METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS

Instrument

BAROMETERS

RAIN GAUGES

Thermometers

Project

EOSDIS > Earth Observing System Data Information System

ESIP > Earth Science Information Partners Program

SAFARI 2000 > The Southern African Regional Science Initiative Project

CWIC > CEOS WGISS Integrated Catalog

Ancillary Keywords

GHCN

EOSDIS

Data Set Progress

COMPLETE

Data Center

THE OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY (ORNL) DISTRIBUTED ACTIVE ARCHIVE CENTER (DAAC)

Data Center URL: http://daac.ornl.gov/
Dataset ID: 631

Data Center Personnel
Name: ORNL DAAC USER SERVICES OFFICE Phone: (865) 574-7447 Email: uso at daac.ornl.gov Contact Address: ORNL DAAC User Services Office Oak Ridge National Laboratory City: Oak Ridge Province or State: TN Postal Code: 37831-6407 Country: USA