European Reanalysis - ERA Interim

Access

Access at CERA with acceptance of terms of use with ECRANA Form:

Get data via HTTP

Free access with Conditions on use at ECMWF:

View data at ECMWF

Get data via HTTP

RESTRICTED only accessable in ZMAW net or via CliSAP login What does that mean?

Data access via file system with acceptance of terms of use with ECRANA Form: /data/icdc/reanalyses/era_interim/

Description

ERA-Interim is the latest global atmospheric reanalysis, which was produced by the "European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts" (ECMWF). The ERA-Interim-project was carried out inorder to replace the previous atmospheric reanalysis ERA-40. So far it dates back to 1979 and has been continued to the present. The forecast model, data assimilation method and input data sets for ERA-Interim are described in the articles mentioned in the references, where the performance of the system is discussed, too. Problems that occurred in ERA-40 have been treated with improved methods in this new reanalysis. The identified problems were the hydrological cycle, the quality of the stratospheric circulation, and the time consistency of the analyzed fields. The number of pressure levels from ERA-40 has been increased from 23 to 37 levels and additional cloud parameters are included. The use is now free for both scientific and commercial purposes.

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Parameters

Currently available at ICDC. See also parameter list at the ECMWF
Name	Abbrev.	Variable number	Unit
U Wind component at 10m	10U	165	m/s
V Wind component at 10m	10V	166	m/s
Temperature at 2m	2T	167	K
Mean Sea Level Pressure	MSL	151	Pa
Snow density	RSN	33	kg/m³
Snow depth	SD	141	m
Minimum Temperature at 2m	MN2T	202	K
Maximum Temperature at 2m	MX2T	201	K
Sea surface temperature	SST	34	K
Sea ice cover	CI	31	0-1
Total cloud cover	TCC	164	0-1
Total precipitation	TP	228	m
Surface latent heat flux	SLHF	147	W/m2
Surface sensible heat flux	SSHF	146	W/m2
Surface net solar radiation	SSR	210	J/m2
Total column water vapour	TCWV	137	kg/m2

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Coverage, spatial and temporal resolution

Period and temporal resolution:

1979-01-01 to 2013-02-28
6-hourly

Coverage and spatial resolution:

Global
Spatial resolution: about 0.75° x 0.75°, T255 Gaussian grid
Geographic longitude: 0.0°E to 359.25°E
Geographic latitude: -89.425°N to 89.425°N
Dimension: 480 columns x 240 rows
Altitudes: 37 Pressure levels

Format:

NetCDF

Data quality

These are model data based on measured data. Possible sources of errors are faulty measured data that are assimilated into the model, as well as simplifications or even errors in the model. The quality of the data assimilation has been improved significantly compared to ERA40 and the model has a high quality. For details have a look on the project site at the ECMWF.

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