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ERA-20C Project (ECMWF Atmospheric Reanalysis of the 20th Century)

d626000
| DOI: 10.5065/D6VQ30QG
 
Abstract:

ERA-20C is ECMWF's first atmospheric reanalysis of the 20th century, from 1900-2010. It assimilates observations of surface pressure and surface marine winds only. It is an outcome of the ERA-CLIM project.

ERA-20C was produced with IFS version CY38r1 and the same surface and atmospheric forcings as the final version of the atmospheric model integration ERA-20CM. A coupled atmosphere land surface and ocean wave model is used to reanalyze the weather, by assimilating surface observations. The ERA-20C products describe the spatial-temporal evolution of the atmosphere (on 91 vertical levels, between the surface and 0.01 hPa), the land-surface (on 4 soil layers), and the ocean waves (on 25 frequencies and 12 directions).

The horizontal resolution is approximately 125 km (spectral truncation T159). Note that atmospheric data are not only available on the native 91 model levels, but also on 37 pressure levels (as in ERA-Interim), 16 potential temperature levels, and the 2 potential vorticity unit level. NCAR's Data Support Section (DSS) is performing and supplying a grid transformed version of ERA-20C, in which variables originally represented as spectral coefficients or archived on a reduced Gaussian grid are transformed to a regular 320 longitude by 160 latitude N80 Gaussian grid. In addition, DSS is also computing horizontal winds (u-component, v-component) from spectral vorticity and divergence where these are available. The data is being organized into single parameter time series.

The assimilation methodology is 24-hour 4D-Var analysis, with variational bias correction of surface pressure observations. Analysis increments are at T95 horizontal resolution (approximately 210 km). The analyses provide the initial conditions for subsequent forecasts that serve as backgrounds to the next analyses. The spatial temporal evolution of background errors was provided by a 10-member ensemble produced a priori.

The observations assimilated in ERA-20C include surface and mean sea level pressures from ISPD v3.2.6 and ICOADS v2.5.1, and surface marine winds from ICOADS v2.5.1. The observation feedback from ERA-20C, including, for example, departures before and after assimilation and usage flags, will be released at a later stage.

ERA-20C was produced in 2014 in about 6 weeks on ECMWF's IBM POWER7 high-performance computer. This production employed 22 parallel streams: January 1899-December 1904, January 1904-December 1909, etc. The first year of each stream was only used for spin-up and discarded; the final product is made of the last years of each stream.

The temporal resolution of the daily products is usually 3-hourly. Exceptions are in the analysis products, where the following surface parameters are only available 6-hourly: Sea-ice cover, Snow density, Sea surface temperature, Volumetric soil water layer 1, Volumetric soil water layer 2, Volumetric soil water layer 3, Volumetric soil water layer 4, Soil temperature level 1, Snow depth, 2 meter temperature, 2 meter dew point temperature, Soil temperature level 2, Soil temperature level 3, Temperature of snow layer.

Temporal Range:
1900-01-01 00:00 +0000 to 2011-01-01 06:00 +0000 (Entire dataset) Period details by dataset product
Updates:
Daily
Usage Restrictions:

Downloading/Accessing data from this dataset implies acceptance of ECMWF's Terms of Use

Variables:
Air Temperature Albedo Albedo Cloud Frequency
Cloud Liquid Water/Ice Convection Convergence Dew Point Temperature
Geopotential Height Heat Flux Humidity Ice Extent
Planetary Boundary Layer Height Sea Level Pressure Sea Surface Temperature Skin Temperature
Snow Density Snow Depth Snow/Ice Temperature Snow/Ice Temperature
Soil Classification Soil Moisture/Water Content Soil Temperature Surface Pressure
Surface Roughness Surface Winds Terrain Elevation Total Precipitable Water
Tropospheric Ozone Upper Air Temperature Upper Level Winds Vegetation Cover
Vegetation Species Vertical Wind Velocity/Speed Vorticity Water Vapor
Wind Stress
GRIB parameter table: HTML | XML
GRIB2 parameter table: HTML | XML
Vertical Levels:
See the detailed metadata for level information.
Data Types:
Grid
Spatial Coverage:
Longitude Range: Westernmost=180W Easternmost=180E
Latitude Range: Southernmost=89.142S Northernmost=89.142N Detailed coverage information
Data Contributors:
ECMWF
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
Publications:
Stickler, A., S. Brönnimann, M. A. Valente, J. Bethke, A. Sterin, S. Jourdain, E. Roucaute, M. V. Vasquez, D. A. Reyes, R. Allan, and D. Dee, 2014: ERA-CLIM: Historical Surface and Upper-Air Data for Future Reanalyses. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 95(9), 1419-1430 (DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00147.1).
Total Volume:
80.24 TB (Entire dataset) Volume details by dataset product
Data Formats:
Related RDA Datasets:
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NOAA CIRES Twentieth Century Global Reanalysis Version 2
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NOAA/CIRES Twentieth Century Global Reanalysis Version 2c
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International Surface Pressure Databank (ISPDv2)
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The International Surface Pressure Databank version 3
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International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) Release 2.5, Individual Observations
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ERA-Interim Project
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ERA-Interim Project, Monthly Means
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ERA-Interim Project, Single Parameter 6-Hourly Surface Analysis and Surface Forecast Time Series
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JRA-55: Japanese 55-year Reanalysis, Daily 3-Hourly and 6-Hourly Data
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JRA-55: Japanese 55-year Reanalysis, Monthly Means and Variances
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JRA-55C: The Japanese 55-year Reanalysis Using Conventional Data Only
More Details:
View a more detailed summary of the data, including specific date ranges and locations by parameter
Metadata Record:
Data License:
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