NOTICE (March 2018): This website provides access to the CDIAC archive data temporarily. It will be gradually transitioned into data packages in the new ESS-DIVE archive. This site will continue to operate in parallel during and after the transition, and will be retired at a future date. If you have any questions regarding the data or the transition, please contact ess-dive-support@lbl.gov.

image
image image image image
 

Climatological Data for Clouds Over the Globe from Surface Observations (1988) (NDP-026)

DOI: 10.3334/CDIAC/cli.ndp026

data Data

Investigators

C. J. Hahn, S. G. Warren, J. London, R. L. Jenne, and R. M. Chervin

With some data from as early as 1930, global long-term monthly and/or seasonal total cloud cover, cloud type amounts and frequencies of occurrence, low cloud base heights, harmonic analyses of annual and diurnal cycles, interannual variations and trends, and cloud type co-occurrences have been compiled and presented in two atlases (Warren et al. 1988, 1990). These data were derived from land and ship synoptic weather reports from the "SPOT" archive of the Fleet Numerical Oceanography Center (FNOC) and from Release 1 of the Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (COADS) for the years 1930-1979.

The data are in 12 files (one containing latitude, longitude, land-fraction, and number of land stations for grid boxes; four containing total cloud, cloud types, harmonic analyses, and interannual variations and trends for land; four containing total cloud, cloud types, harmonic analyses, and interannual variations and trends for oceans; one containing first cloud analyses for the first year of the GARP Global Experiment (FGGE); one containing cloud-type co-occurrences for land and oceans; and one containing a FORTRAN program to read and produce maps).