The Brief Summary and Guidance sections below, along with the dataset overview link, were taken directly from Dr. Tim Mitchell's CRU TS 2.0 Web Page. Dr. Mitchell is the creator and sole owner of this dataset.

An overview of the dataset can be found here (.pdf).

Brief Summary
The CRU TS 2.0 data-set comprises 1200 monthly grids of observed climate, for the period 1901-2000, and covering the global land surface at 0.5 degree resolution. There are five climatic variables available: cloud cover, DTR, precipitation, temperature, vapour pressure.

It was New et al (2000) who were responsible for the original high-resolution (0.5 degree) climate grids (CRU TS 1.0) and an update to 1998 (CRU TS 1.1). This data-set revises and extends previous data-sets. The grids have been recalculated for 1901-2000, using the same basic methodology as New et al (2000). Users should not mix these grids with CRU TS 1.0 and CRU TS 1.1, except for three exceptions:

• wet day frequencies have not been updated;
• frost day frequencies have not been updated;
• cloud cover has only been updated for 1971-2000.

Guidance
The primary purpose for which this data-set was constructed was to provide environmental modellers with some of the inputs they require to run their models. This purpose governed the choices that were made during the construction of the data-set. The methodology we used affects how the data-set should be used. The issues involved in using CRU TS 2.0 for time-series analysis are addressed more explicitly and fully. We recommend that all users who intend to examine climate change using this data-set should consider the issues carefully before beginning their work.

Mitchell, T.D., Carter, T.R., Jones, P.D., Hulme,M., New, M., 2003: A comprehensive set of high-resolution grids of monthly climate for Europe and the globe: the observed record (1901-2000) and 16 scenarios (2001-2100). J. Climate: submitted.

New, M., Hulme, M., and Jones, P., 1999: Representing Twentieth-Century Space-Time Climate Variability. Part I: Development of a 1961-90 mean monthly terrestrial climatology. J. Climate 12,829-856.

New, M., Hulme, M., and Jones, P., 2000: Representing Twentieth-Century Space-Time Climate Variability. Part II: development of 1901-96 9 monthly grids of terrestrial surface climate. J. Climate 13, 2217-2238.

New, M., Lister, D., Hulme, M., and Makin, I., 2002: A high-resolution data set of surface climate over global land areas. Climate Research, 21, 1-25.

Click on the links below to view data coverage maps. Percentage of non-missing data per time period is plotted. Although only precipitation was analyzed here, data coverage is the same for other variables.

(1901-2000)

Updated: 10/27/03
Maintained by asphilli@ucar.edu