Greenland Climate
Climate Change in the Arctic
/Greenland Climate/Data
Terms of use
Data from the Greenland Climate Change project are for use in research projects only. A "research project" is any project carried out by an individual or organized by a university, a scientific institute, or similar organization (private or public) for non-commercial research purposes only. Results based on these data must be submitted for publication in the open literature without any delay linked to commercial objectives.
Proper acknowledgement should be given to the project in your publications. The acknowledgement could be something like: "Model data has been provided through the Greenland Climate Change data archive (see http:// klimagroenland.dmi.dk), funded by the Danish Meteorological Institute and the Danish Ministry of the Environment".
Lastly, if you happen to have problems or find errors in the data sets, we would like to know about it. Any future updates or additions to the data sets will be fully documented on this web site.
Data access
Data can be accessed by direct download of netCDF data files or by using an OPeNDAP (formerly DODS) client, which makes it possible to extract subareas and subperiods in order to minimize download time. Please refer to the software pages at UCAR for detailed descriptions on how to use netCDF and OPeNDAP.
Follow this link to access the Greenland Climate Change data archive.
The data archive contains gridded values (daily and monthly means, respectively) for each of the parameters specified in the table below. It should be noted that data files containing "_WG_" in the file name (daily values only) cover a subset of the full region, i.e. a specific region in West Greenland, which is presently being investigated by GEUS.
Note also that the data files are stored in the same (DODS) data archive as used in the PRUDENCE project.
| Variable | Description | MKS units |
| PLEV/ subdirectory (pressure levels) | ||
| Daily data are packed: 1950-1999, 2000-2049, 2050-2080. Monthly means: 1950-2080. | ||
| 30-year means(*): 1961-1990, 2021-2050, 2050-2080. | ||
| T[10-1000]_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Temperature at pressure levels 10-1000 hPa | K |
| U[10-1000]_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Zonal wind at pressure levels 10-1000 hPa | m/s |
| V[10-1000]_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Meridional wind at pressure levels 10-1000 hPa | m/s |
| Q[10-1000]_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Specific humidity at pressure levels 10-1000 hPa | kg/kg |
| W[10-1000]_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Vertical velocity at pressure levels 10-1000 hPa | Pa/s |
| Z[10-1000]_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Geopotential at pressure levels 10-1000 hPa | gpm |
| SURF/ subdirectory (surface) | ||
| Daily data are packed: 1950-1999, 2000-2049, 2050-2080. Monthly means: 1950-2080*. | ||
| 30-year means(*): 1961-1990, 2021-2050, 2050-2080. | ||
| ALB_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Albedo | [0..1] |
| CC_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Cloud cover | [0..1] |
| DRAIN_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Drainage | m |
| EFU_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Zonal energy flux | J/m |
| EFV_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Meridional energy flux | J(m s) |
| E_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Evaporation | mm/day |
| LAI_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Leaf area index | [0..1] |
| LHF_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Latent heat flux | W/m2 |
| LWCI_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Vertically integrated cloud water | kg/m2 |
| LWsfcnet_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Net longwave radiation at surface | W/m2 |
| LWsfcup_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Upwards longwave radiation at surface | W/m2 |
| LWtoanet_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Net longwave radiation at top of atm. | W/m2 |
| Psfc_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Surface pressure | hPa |
| QFV_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Meridional moisture flux | kg/m2 |
| QVI_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Vertically integrated specific humidity | kg/m2 |
| RR_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Precipitation | mm/day |
| RUNOFF_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Runoff | m |
| SF_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Snow fall | mm/day |
| SHF_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Sensible heat flux | W/m2 |
| SLP_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Sea level pressure | hPa |
| SM_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Snow melt | mm/day |
| SN_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Snow cover (unit of water equivalent) | m |
| SRC_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Skin reservoir content | m |
| SWsfcnet_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Net shortwave radiation at surface | W/m2 |
| SWsfcup_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Upwards shortwave radiation at surface | W/m2 |
| SWtoanet_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Net shortwave radiation at top of atm. | W/m2 |
| SWtoaup_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Upwards shortwave radiation at top of atm. | W/m2 |
| T2m_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | 2-m temperature | K |
| TD1_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Deep soil level 1 | K |
| TD2_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Deep soil level 2 | K |
| TD3_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Deep soil level 3 | K |
| TD4_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Deep soil level 4 | K |
| TD5_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Deep soil level 5 | K |
| Td2m_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | 2-m dew point | K |
| Tice_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Sea ice temperature | K |
| Tn2m_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | 2-m minimum temperature | K |
| Tnsfc_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Surface minimum temperature | K |
| Tsfc_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Surface temperature | K |
| Tx2m_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | 2-m maximum temperature | K |
| Txsfc_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Surface maximum temperature | K |
| U10m_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | 10-m zonal wind | m/s |
| V10m_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | 10-m meridional wind | m/s |
| VGRAT | Vegetation ratio | [0..1] |
| VIND10m_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | 10-m wind speed | m/s |
| WS_YYYY-ZZZZ.nc.gz | Soil wetness | m |
(*) = files labelled by "1961-1990", "2021-2050" and "2051-2080" in the "monthly/" subdirectory are actually 30-year means rather than monthly means. All monthly means are instead packed into one data file, i.e. which is labelled by "1950-2080".
NEWS
April 24th, 2008
The data archive has now finally been fully restored, and thus the Greenland model data are again available for download.
Jan. 2nd, 2008
Regrettably, the data sets are no longer available for direct download due to a fatal problem with our data server. The server has now been changed and upgraded, however, since the data files were lost completely, they will not be available for download, at least for a few months, while pre-processing is carried out anew. We apologize for the inconvenience.
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