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Full catalog/GLDAS_NOAH025_3H_EP
GLDAS_NOAH025_3H_EP·v2.1·dataset

Soil moisture and energy worldwide, early release (3-hourly)

GLDAS Noah Land Surface Model L4 3 hourly 0.25 x 0.25 degree Early Product V2.1 (GLDAS_NOAH025_3H_EP) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 4 active
In plain English

What it measures. Conditions at the land surface worldwide every three hours, such as soil moisture and the flows of water and energy between land and air, produced by a land model.

How it's made. Generated by NASA's Global Land Data Assimilation System running the Noah land model on a 0.25-degree grid; this 'early' release comes out faster by leaving out a rain dataset that arrives months late.

How & where you'd use it. Supports drought monitoring, water-resource planning, and weather and climate research; the early version trades a little completeness for quicker availability and is later replaced by the full product.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE › SURFACE PRESSUREATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › HEAT FLUXATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › LONGWAVE RADIATIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › SHORTWAVE RADIATIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE › SURFACE TEMPERATUREATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR › WATER VAPOR INDICATORS › HUMIDITYATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR › WATER VAPOR PROCESSES › EVAPOTRANSPIRATIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC WINDS › SURFACE WINDSATMOSPHERE › PRECIPITATION › LIQUID PRECIPITATION › RAINATMOSPHERE › PRECIPITATION › PRECIPITATION RATEATMOSPHERE › PRECIPITATION › SOLID PRECIPITATION › SNOWLAND SURFACE › SOILS › SOIL MOISTURE/WATER CONTENTLAND SURFACE › SOILS › SOIL TEMPERATURELAND SURFACE › SURFACE THERMAL PROPERTIES › LAND SURFACE TEMPERATURE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2019-12-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byNoah-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 Noah 0.25 degree 3-hourly dataset. The 3-hourly data product was simulated with the Noah Model 3.6 in Land Information System (LIS) Version 7. The data product contains 36 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

gldas_noah025_3h_ep_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="GLDAS_NOAH025_3H_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.