Summary

Description

This data set contains the monthly climatology data of the primary forcing data for Phase 2 of the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS-2). The data are in 1/8th degree grid spacing. The temporal resolution is monthly, ranging from January to December. The NLDAS-2 monthly climatology data are the monthly data averaged over the thirty years (1980 - 2009) of the NLDAS-2 monthly data. The file format is WMO GRIB-1. Brief description about the NLDAS-2 hourly and monthly primary forcing data can be found from the GCMD DIFs for GES_DISC_NLDAS_FORA0125_H_V002 and GES_DISC_NLDAS_FORA0125_M_V002 at http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/getdif.htm?GES_DISC_NLDAS_FORA0125_H_V002 and http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/getdif.htm?GES_DISC_NLDAS_FORA0125_M_V002. Details about the generation of the NLDAS-2 forcing datasets can be found in Xia et al. (2012). The monthly climatology land surface forcing fields for NLDAS-2 are grouped into two GRIB files, "File A" and "File B". "File A" is the primary (default) forcing file and contains eleven fields. The GRIBTAB file (http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/hydrology/grib_tabs/gribtab_NLDAS_FORA_hourly.002.txt) shows a list of parameters for this data set, along with their Product Definition Section (PDS) IDs and units. For more information, please see the README Document at ftp://hydro1.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/s4pa/NLDAS/README.NLDAS2.pdf.