National Center for Atmospheric Research’s (NCAR) Climate Data Guide

NCAR’s Climate Data Guide seeks to provide concise and reliable information on the strengths and limitations of key observational data sets, tools and methods used to evaluate Earth system models and to understand the climate system. It is intended to help climate scientists make more informed selections of datasets for their own research and to better understand different data and analysis methods.The Climate Data Guide recognizes that highly accurate, readily accessible data in user-friendly formats is important to a diverse body of users across private, public, and academic sectors, and seeks to respond to the rapidly increasing volume of climate data available. The Guide collects commentary from expert data developers and users regarding applications of datasets, common mistakes made in processing or interpreting the data, uncertainty, etc. It also profiles observational climate datasets, with descriptions of the dataset’s strengths, limitations, and typical uses, tailored to Earth system model evaluation and general climate research.