Climate hydrology and ecology research support system meteorology dataset for Great Britain (1961-2012) [CHESS-met]

Abstract

1km resolution gridded meteorological variables over Great Britain for the years 1961-2012. This dataset contains time series of daily mean values of air temperature (K), specific humidity (kg kg-1), wind speed (m s-1), downward longwave radiation (W m-2), downward shortwave radiation (W m-2), precipitation (kg m-2 s-1) and air pressure (Pa), plus daily temperature range (K). These are the variables required to run the JULES land surface model [1] with daily disaggregation. The precipitation data were obtained by scaling the Gridded estimates of daily and monthly areal rainfall (CEH-GEAR) daily rainfall estimates [2,3] to the units required for JULES input. Other variables were interpolated from coarser resolution datasets, taking into account topographic information. [1] Best, M. J., Pryor, M., Clark, D. B., Rooney, G. G., Essery, R. L. H., Ménard, C. B., Edwards, J. M., Hendry, M. A., Porson, A., Gedney, N., Mercado, L. M., Sitch, S., Blyth, E., Boucher, O., Cox, P. M., Grimmond, C. S. B., and Harding, R. J.: The Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES), model description - Part 1: Energy and water fluxes, Geoscientific Model Development, 4, 677-699, doi:10.5194/gmd-4-677-2011, 2011. [2] Tanguy, M., Dixon, H., Prosdocimi, I., Morris, D. G., Keller, V. D. J. (2014). Gridded estimates of daily and monthly areal rainfall for the United Kingdom (1890-2012) [CEH-GEAR]. NERC-Environmental Information Data Centre doi:10.5285/5dc179dc-f692-49ba-9326-a6893a503f6e [3] Keller,V. D. J., Tanguy, M. , Prosdocimi, I. , Terry, J. A. , Hitt, O., Cole, S. J. , Fry, M., Morris, D. G., Dixon, H. (2015) CEH-GEAR: 1km resolution daily and monthly areal rainfall estimates for the UK for hydrological use. Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., 8, 83-112, www.earth-syst-sci-data-discuss.net/8/83/2015/ doi:10.5194/essdd-8-83-2015.

Abstract

The precipitation was obtained by scaling the daily rainfall estimates from the CEH-Gridded Estimates of Areal Rainfall (CEH-GEAR) dataset [1,2] to units of kg m-2 s-1. The Met Office Rainfall Evaporation Calculation System (MORECS) [3,4] air temperature and vapour pressure, and hours of bright sunshine were interpolated to 1km resolution, then corrected for the local topography using the Integrated Hydrological Digital Terrain Model (IHDTM) [5] to find the CHESS-met air temperature (K), specific humidity (kg kg-1) and downward long- and shortwave radiation (W m-2). The wind speed (m s-1) was found by interpolating the MORECS wind speed, then correcting for topography using the UK Energy Technology Support Unit (ETSU) average wind speed dataset [6,7]. The daily temperature range (K) was reprojected from the CRU TS 3.21 monthly data [8,9]. The air pressure (Pa) was found by calculating a climatology of the WATCH Forcing Data (WFD) air pressure [10], then correcting for topography using the IHDTM. The data were created using software developed in Fortran 95 and python. [1] Tanguy, M., Dixon, H., Prosdocimi, I., Morris, D. G., Keller, V. D. J. (2014). Gridded estimates of daily and monthly areal rainfall for the United Kingdom (1890-2012) [CEH-GEAR]. NERC-Environmental Information Data Centre doi:10.5285/5dc179dc-f692-49ba-9326-a6893a503f6e [2] Keller,V. D. J., Tanguy, M. , Prosdocimi, I. , Terry, J. A. , Hitt, O., Cole, S. J. , Fry, M., Morris, D. G., Dixon, H. (2015) CEH-GEAR: 1km resolution daily and monthly areal rainfall estimates for the UK for hydrological use. Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., 8, 83-112, www.earth-syst-sci-data-discuss.net/8/83/2015/ doi:10.5194/essdd-8-83-2015. [3] Thompson, N., Barrie, I. A., and Ayles, M.: The Meteorological Office rainfall and evaporation calculation system: MORECS, Meteorological Office, Bracknell, 1981. [4] Hough, M. N., and Jones, R. J. A.: The United Kingdom Meteorological Office rainfall and evaporation calculation system: MORECS version 2.0-an overview, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 1, 227-239, 10.5194/hess-1-227-1997, 1997. [5] Morris, D. G., and Flavin, R. W.: A digital terrain model for hydrology., Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling, 1, 250-262, 1990. [6] Newton, K., and Burch, S. F.: Estimation of the UK wind energy resource using computer modelling techniques and map data, Energy Technology Support Unit, 50, 1985. [7] Burch, S. F., and Ravenscroft, F.: Computer modelling of the UK wind energy resource: Final overview report., AEA Industrial Technology, 1992. [8] CRU TS3.21: Climatic Research Unit (CRU) Time-Series (TS) Version 3.21 of High Resolution Gridded Data of Month-by-month Variation in Climate (Jan. 1901- Dec. 2012). 2013. [9] Harris, I., Jones, P. D., Osborn, T. J., and Lister, D. H.: Updated high-resolution grids of monthly climatic observations - the CRU TS3.10 Dataset, International Journal of Climatology, 34, 623-642, Doi 10.1002/Joc.3711, 2014. [10] Weedon, G. P., Gomes, S., Viterbo, P., Shuttleworth, W. J., Blyth, E., Osterle, H., Adam, J. C., Bellouin, N., Boucher, O., and Best, M.: Creation of the WATCH Forcing Data and Its Use to Assess Global and Regional Reference Crop Evaporation over Land during the Twentieth Century, Journal of Hydrometeorology, 12, 823-848, Doi 10.1175/2011jhm1369.1, 2011.