Modeled land water and energy, monthly (Catchment, 1 deg)
What it measures. Monthly modeled estimates of land-surface water and energy, such as soil moisture, runoff, and related land conditions, on a 1-degree global grid.
How it's made. Produced by NASA's Global Land Data Assimilation System running the Catchment land model; this is an 'Early Product,' released faster (about 1.5-month delay) before final rainfall data is folded in.
How & where you'd use it. Useful for monitoring droughts, water availability, and land conditions, with the early-release timing making it handy when fresher data matters more than final precision.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2019-12-01 → ongoing
- Measured byCatchment-LSM (NOT APPLICABLE)
- Processing levelLevel 4
- Spatial extent-180, -60, 180, 90
- StatusACTIVE
What you can do with it
- Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
- Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
- Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description
NASA Global Land Data Assimilation System Version 2 (GLDAS-2) has three components: GLDAS-2.0, GLDAS-2.1, and GLDAS-2.2. GLDAS-2.0 is forced entirely with the Princeton meteorological forcing input data and provides a temporally consistent series from 1948 through 2014. GLDAS-2.1 is forced with a combination of model and observation data from 2000 to present. GLDAS-2.2 product suites use data assimilation (DA), whereas the GLDAS-2.0 and GLDAS-2.1 products are "open-loop" (i.e., no data assimilation). The choice of forcing data, as well as DA observation source, variable, and scheme, vary for different GLDAS-2.2 products. GLDAS-2.1 data products are now available in two production streams: one stream is forced with combined forcing data including GPCP version 1.3 (the main production stream), and the other stream is processed without this forcing data (the early production stream). Since the GPCP Version 1.3 data have a 3-4 month latency, the GLDAS-2.1 data products are first created without it, and are designated as Early Products (EPs), with about 1.5 month latency. Once the GPCP Version 1.3 data become available, the GLDAS-2.1 data products are processed in the main production stream and are removed from the Early Products archive. This data product is an Early Product for GLDAS-2.1 Catchment 1.0 degree monthly dataset. The GLDAS-2.1 monthly 1.0 degree product was generated through temporal averaging of GLDAS-2.1 3-hourly data simulated with the Catchment-F2.5 Land Surface Model in Land Information System (LIS) Version 7. The data product contains 34 land surface fields from January 2000 to present. The GLDAS-2.1 simulation started on January 1, 2000 using the conditions from the GLDAS-2.0 simulation. This simulation was forced with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) atmospheric analysis fields (Derber et al., 1991), the disaggregated Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) V1.3 Daily Analysis precipitation fields (Adler et al., 2003; Huffman et al., 2001), and the Air Force Weather Agency's AGRicultural METeorological modeling system (AGRMET) radiation fields. The simulation used with GDAS and GPCP only from 2000 to February 2001, followed by addition of AGRMET for March 1, 2001 onwards. The GLDAS-2.1 products supersede their corresponding GLDAS-1 products. The GLDAS-2.1 data are archived and distributed in NetCDF format.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="GLDAS_CLSM10_M_EP",
version="2.1",
bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9), # your area (W,S,E,N)
temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"), # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results) # stream straight from GES_DISC Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- Access the data via HTTPS. GET DATA
- README Document VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- How to read and plot the data. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- GES DISC Hydrology Documentation VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Use the Earthdata Search to find and retrieve data sets across multiple data centers. GET DATA
- GLDAS_CLM10SUBP_3H Status and Related Data Collections VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- GLDAS LSM Description VIEW RELATED INFORMATION