Reanalysis Tropopause Data Repository

Introduction

This data repository provides access to tropopause parameters estimated from meteorological reanalyses. The tropopause data sets provided on this web site have been created using meteorological reanalyses distributed by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and the National Centers for Atmospheric Prediction (NCEP).

Currently, the repository covers the following data sets:

The data are provided in form of daily netCDF files on a regular longitude-latitude grid and temporal sampling matching the native resolution of the corresponding reanalysis data sets. For ERA5 we provide a low-resolution version which has been downsampled to 1° x 1° horizontal resolution and 6-hourly synoptic time steps.

The tropopause data files include geopotential height, pressure, temperature, water vapor, and ozone volume mixing ratio for the first and second thermal lapse rate tropopause (WMO definition), the cold point (local temperature minimum), and the dynamical tropopause (380 K potential temperature in the tropics and 3.5 potential vorticity units in the extratropics).

Two versions of the tropopause data sets are provided. Version 1 refers to the original data described by Hoffmann and Spang (2022). Version 2 applies the same algorithms for tropopause detection but includes surface pressure and height as well as ozone concentrations at the tropopause for further analysis.

Browse images

The browse images provided on this web site show time series of the various tropopause data sets. Use the navigation bars to select the tropopause definition and the parameter to be displayed. Click on an image to see the full size version.

Data access

The data sets and browse images provided on this web site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to share the material in any medium or format and adapt it for any purpose, even commercially. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. The data are distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty. Please follow the link to see the terms and conditions of the license:

References

Citations, if the data are used in publications:

Hoffmann, L. and Spang, R.: An assessment of tropopause characteristics of the ERA5 and ERA-Interim meteorological reanalyses, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 4019-4046, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-4019-2022, 2022.

Zou, L., Hoffmann, L., Müller, R., and Spang, R., Variability and trends of the tropical tropopause derived from a 1980–2021 multi-reanalysis assessment, Front. Earth Sci, 11:1177502, https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2023.1177502, 2023.

This data repository can be cited as:

Hoffmann, L. and R. Spang, Reanalysis Tropopause Data Repository, https://doi.org/10.26165/JUELICH-DATA/UBNGI2, Jülich DATA, V1, 2021.

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; grant no. HO5102/1-1).

Contact

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions regarding the use of the data set:

Dr. Lars Hoffmann

Forschungszentrum Jülich
Jülich Supercomputing Centre
52425 Jülich
Germany

e-mail: l.hoffmann@fz-juelich.de

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