On this page: Temporal Coverage | Spatial Coverage | Levels | Update Schedule | Download/Plot Data | Analysis Tools
Restrictions | Details | Caveats | File Naming | Citation | References | Original Source | Contact

NOAA's PRECipitation REConstruction Dataset (PREC)

Mean files have been converted to netCDF4-classic format

Brief Description:

• NOAA's Precipitation Reconstruction (PREC)

Temporal Coverage: Monthly values 1948/01 to Dec 2020 Spatial Coverage: 2.5 degree latitude x 2.5 degree longitude global grid (144x72). 88.75N - 88.75S, 1.25E - 358.75E.

Levels:

• Surface

Update Schedule:

• Quasi Real-time at NOAA/CPC

Download/Plot Data: (FTP Access)

Variable	Statistic	Level	Units	Download File	Create Plot/Subset
Precipitation	Anomaly	N/A	mm/day	precip.mon.anom.nc

Usage Restrictions:

• None

Detailed Description:

• The PREC data set is an analysis of monthly precipitation constructed on a 2.5(o)lat/lon grid over the global for the period from 1948 to the present. The land portion of this global analysis is defined by optimum interpolation of gauge observations at over 17,000 stations collected in the NOAA/NCDC GHCN Version 2 and the NOAA/CPC CAMS data sets. The oceanic precipitation analysis (PREC/O), meanwhile, is produced by EOF reconstruction of historical gauge observations over islands and land areas. The EOF modes are derived from EOF analysis of the satellite estimates for later years (OPI, 1979-1998) with complete spatial coverage. The current version 1.0 is based on the first 8 EOF global modes for each 4 seasons and the first 4 EOF modes of the residual components of the 8 EOF global modes over Atlantic Ocean areas. The climatology is based on time period of 1951-1990 over land and 1979-1998 over oceans.

Caveats:

• None

Related File Naming & Structure Information:

File Names:

• /Datasets/prec/precip.mon.anom.nc.

OpenDap File Names:

• /thredds/dodsC/Datasets/prec/precip.mon.anom.nc.

Dataset Format and Size:

• PSL standard NetCDF 31 Mbyte file the file of monthly values.

Missing Data:

• Missing data is flagged with a value of -9.96921e+36f.

Citation:

• Chen, M., P. Xie, J. E. Janowiak, and P. A. Arkin, 2002: Global Land Precipitation: A 50-yr Monthly Analysis Based on Gauge Observations, J. of Hydrometeorology, 3, 249-266
• Please note: If you acquire PREC Precipitation data products from PSL, we ask that you acknowledge us in your use of the data. This may be done by including text such as PREC Precipitation data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSL, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their Web site at / in any documents or publications using these data. We would also appreciate receiving a copy of the relevant publications. This will help PSL to justify keeping the PREC Precipitation data set freely available online in the future. Thank you!

References:

Chen, M., P. Xie, J. E. Janowiak, and P. A. Arkin, 2002: Global Land Precipitation: A 50-yr Monthly Analysis Based on Gauge Observations, 2002, J. of Hydrometeorology, 3, 249-266. Chen, M., P. Xie, J.E. Janowiak, and P.A. Arkin, 2004: Verifying the reanalysis and climate models outputs using a 56-year data set of reconstructed global precipitation. 14th AMS Conf. Appl. Meteor., 11-15 January, 2004, Seattle, WA. Chen, M., P. Xie, J. E. Janowiak, P. A. Arkin, and T. M. Smith, 2003: Reconstruction of the oceanic precipitation from 1948 to the present. the AMS 14th Symposium on Global Change and Climate Variations, Long Beach, CA, 2003.

Original Source:

• Dr. May (Mingyue) Chen
  Climate Prediction Center
  5200 Auth Road, #805B
  Camp Spings MD 20764
  Tel: (301) 763-8000 ext. 7506
  Fax: (301) 763-8125
  E-mail: mingyue.chen@noaa.gov
  original ftp: ftp://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/precip/50yr/land_ocean/

Contact:

• Physical Sciences Laboratory: Data Management
  NOAA/ESRL/PSL
  325 Broadway
  Boulder, CO 80305-3328
  psl.data@noaa.gov