ERA5 0.25 degree monthly mean data available

ERA5 0.25° gridded monthly means spanning 1979-2018 in netCDF4/HDF5 format are available for download and subsetting via

ERA5 Reanalysis (Monthly Mean 0.25 Degree Latitude-Longitude Grid)

There are 227 parameters in 6 groups including pressure level and surface analysis, and surface forecast data. Data prior to 1979 will be added pending public release by ECMWF, and similarly this dataset will be updated post-2018.

ERA-Interim updated through August 2019

ERA-Interim in the RDA has been updated through August 2019 (the final year and month):

ERA-Interim Project

Further production of ERA-Interim has been ceased by ECMWF. The primary ECMWF reanalysis has now shifted to

ERA5 Reanalysis (0.25 Degree Latitude-Longitude Grid)

spanning January 1979 to July 2019 which is being updated on a monthly basis. ERA5 prior to 1979 (1950-1978) will be made available pending public release by ECMWF.

Changes to NCAR RDA Maintained ERA5 datasets

The currently available, full time-series of ERA5 has been published under ds633.0 -ERA5 Reanalysis (0.25 Degree Latitude-Longitude Grid) https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds633.0/#!description.  Data are now available from 1979 to the present in ds633.0, and it will continue to be extended in time. Data from 1950 to 1978 will be added once they become available in the Copernicus Climate Data Store. Processing and archiving of data to ds630.0 -ERA5 Reanalysis, https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds630.0/#!description has been discontinued and the web access has been removed as of Oct 3, 2019.  Additionally, NCAR HPC users will no longer be able to access ds630.0 from the glade file system, as the data have been purged to free up storage space.  NCAR HPC users should now access ERA5 data from the ds633.0 dataset directory

For background, processing and publication of data to ds630.0 was stopped in April, 2019, due to the length of time it was taking to update that dataset.  It was estimated that it would take around 6-7 years to download, process, and archive data in ds630.0 using legacy strategies, versus around 1 year to download, process, and archive the full time series (1950 - present)  of the 0.25x0.25 gridded data staged online in the Copernicus Climate Data Store.

Change to NCAR RDA ERA5 dataset, ds630.0 web access to be removed on Oct 1.

The currently available, full time-series of ERA-5 has been published under ds633.0 -ERA5 Reanalysis (0.25 Degree Latitude-Longitude Grid) https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds633.0/#!description.  Data are now available from 1979 to the present in ds633.0, and it will continue to be extended in time. Data from 1950 to 1978 will be added once they become available in the Copernicus Climate Data Store. Processing and archiving of data to ds630.0 -ERA5 Reanalysis, https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds630.0/#!description has been discontinued and the web access will be removed on Oct 1, 2019.

For background, processing and publication of data to ds630.0 was stopped in April, 2019, due to the length of time it was taking to update that dataset.  It was estimated that it would take around 6-7 years to download, process, and archive data in ds630.0 using legacy strategies, versus around 1 year to download, process, and archive the full time series (1950 - present)  of the 0.25x0.25 gridded data staged online in the Copernicus Climate Data Store.

We encourage you to modify all RDA supported ERA-5 workflows to use ds633.0, https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds633.0/#!description as soon as possible.

Would you like to perform data analysis on NCAR RDA maintained data without the need to move it?

Would you like to perform computational analysis on NCAR RDA maintained dataset collections without the need to transfer the data to your local system?  Many in the US University research community are eligible to get allocations on NCAR CISL computing resources, which provide direct read access to most RDA dataset collections.  An overview of all of the CISL allocations programs is provided at https://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/user-support/allocations.  Typically, data analysis workflows only require a Small Allocation Request.  US University users supported by NSF grants should follow the instructions found under "University - Small Request"to submit a request for a small allocation to perform data analysis processing.  If you are a US University Graduate Student or Postdoc, you might have eligibility to apply for a "University Grad/Postdoc Small Allocation Request"even if you are not supported by a NSF grant.  We encourage all who may be eligible to explore the option of using CISL supported compute resources to perform their data analysis tasks, as it could be much more efficient than waiting for large volumes of data to transfer to your local compute resources.

Change to NCAR RDA maintained ERA5 dataset, ds630.0 no longer updated

The full time series of the RDA maintained ERA-5 dataset is being made available under ds633.0 -ERA5 Reanalysis (0.25 Degree Latitude-Longitude Grid) 
https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds633.0/#!description.  We expect ds633.0 to include data from 1979 - present by the end of Sep, 2019.  Processing and archiving of data to ds630.0 ERA5 Reanalysis, https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds630.0/#!description has been discontinued and the web access will be removed within the next two months, once the full time range has been made available in ds633.0.

For background, processing and publication of data to ds630.0 was stopped in April, 2019, due to  the length of time it was taking to update that dataset.  It was estimated that it would take around 6-7 years to download, process, and archive data in ds630.0 using legacy strategies versus around 1 year to download, process, and archive the full time series (1950 - present)  of the 0.25x0.25 gridded data staged online in the Copernicus Climate Data Store.

We encourage you to modify all RDA supported ERA-5 workflows to use ds633.0, https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds633.0/#!description as soon as possible.

RDA ERA5 now spans 1979 through early 2019.

Currently RDA ERA5 is represented by two datasets.

0.25° ERA5 1979-2001 is available online as netCDF in ds633.0:

ERA5 Reanalysis (0.25 Degree Latitude-Longitude Grid)

which is being updated continuously and is expected to extend through at least mid 2019 by late September of this year. The original RDA ERA5 dataset is ds630.0:

ERA5 Reanalysis

which utilizes a 0.281° 1280x640 regular Gaussian grid and is available online as netCDF spanning 2002-2019.

We encourage users to employ the 0.25° version of ERA5 (ds633.0) as it is uncertain whether ds630.0 will be extended. In addition, note that the online data format is netCDF — please refer to the previous blog post for further information.

NCAR RDA supported ERA5, ECMWF operational, and future reanalysis products to be provided in NetCDF format

The Research Data Archive at NCAR plans to restructure and translate future reanalysis products, selected operational NWP products, and selected in-situ observational data products into CF-compliant NetCDF from the native NWP formats moving forward.  This action is being taken for a variety of reasons as described below.

NetCDF provides:

• Support for more effective and emerging data compression options (30% less storage volume currently needed for ERA5 in NetCDF vs GRIB1 and GRIB2 formats).
• Capability to follow best practices for long term data curation by storing data in a self describing format (no need for external tables, sometimes unique to each data provider).
• Capability to include provenance tracking within the data files (Dataset Digital Object Identifier (DOI) along with a description of data preparation workflow steps are included global attributes for ERA5).
• A broader set of community supported data analysis tools.
• Support for object store (cloud) access in the underlying NetCDF/HDF libraries and community supported capabilities to translate from NetCDF to cloud optimized data analysis formats.

Additionally, restructuring and translating the data from native GRIB
formats to CF-compliant NetCDF solves interoperability issues
created by non-standard GRIB1 and GRIB2 encoding practices used by NWP centers to serve their internal use case needs.

For WRF users: Community efforts are underway to develop tools to translate NetCDF data into WRF-intermediate format.  Currently ungrib is the only tool provided to do this in the WRF preprocessing system (WPS) software package.  Some WRF users have developed their own tools and workflows to translate data from NetCDF into the WRF-intermediate format.

Research Data Archive at NCAR certified as a CoreTrustSeal Repository by the World Data System

The World Data System (WDS), an international consortium promoting scientific data integrity, trust and stewardship, has recognized the Research Data Archive (RDA) at NCAR as a data center meeting the requirements of the CoreTrustSeal (https://www.coretrustseal.org/) .  This universal catalogue of criteria reflects the core characteristics of trustworthy data repositories and indicates that the RDA meets the highest international requirements for quality assured scientific data, services, and data archiving and stewardship.
A list of certified data centers can be found here: https://www.coretrustseal.org/why-certification/certified-repositories/

ERA5 1979 onward becoming available in the RDA

CISL DECS is processing ERA5, 1979 onward, into netCDF4/HDF5 files containing single parameter 0.25° gridded time series. Please refer to ds633.0,

ERA5 Reanalysis (0.25 Degree Latitude-Longitude Grid)

for further information and availability.

Please note: DECS is producing a CF 1.6 compliant netCDF-4/HDF5 version of ERA5 for the CISL RDA at NCAR. The netCDF-4/HDF5 version is the de facto RDA ERA5 online data format. The GRIB1 data format is only available via NCAR's High Performance Storage System (HPSS). There is a one-to-one correspondence between the netCDF-4/HDF5 and GRIB1 files, with as much GRIB1 metadata as possible incorporated into the attributes of the netCDF-4/HDF5 counterpart.