North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program
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NARCCAP Data Tables
 

NARCCAP Data Tables

NARCCAP data is organized into groups based on its spatial and temporal structure: 2-D vs 3-D, daily vs 3-hourly, etc. The groups are listed in the table below:

Table 1: Daily fields (2-D)
Var. Long Name Units Notes
sic Daily average Sea-ice Fraction 1
spdmax Maximum Daily 10-Meter Wind Speed m s-1
tasmax Maximum Daily Surface Air Temperature K
tasmin Minimum Daily Surface Air Temperature K
 
Table 2: Primary 3-hourly surface fields (2-D)
Var. Long Name Units Notes
huss Surface Specific Humidity kg kg-1 instantaneous
pr Precipitation kg m-2 s-1 average
ps Surface Pressure Pa instantaneous
rsds Surface Downwelling Shortwave Radiation W m-2 average, positive down
tas Surface Air Temperature K instantaneous
uas Zonal Surface Wind Speed m s-1 instantaneous, positive east
vas Meridional Surface Wind Speed m s-1 instantaneous, positive north
 
Table 3: Additional 3-hourly fields (2-D)
Var. Long Name Units Notes
clt Total Cloud Fraction 1 average
evps Surface Evaporation of Condensed Water kg m-2 s-1 average
hfls Surface Latent Heat Flux W m-2 average, positive up
hfss Surface Sensible Heat Flux W m-2 average, positive up
mrfso Soil Frozen Water Content kg m-2 instantaneous
mrro Surface and Subsurface Runoff kg m-2 s-1 average
mrros Surface Runoff kg m-2 s-1 average
mrso Total Soil Moisture Content kg m-2 instantaneous
prc Convective Precipitation kg m-2 s-1 average
prw Precipitable Water kg m-2 instantaneous
psl Sea Level Pressure Pa instantaneous
rlds Surface Downwelling Longwave Radiation W m-2 average, positive down
rlus Surface Upwelling Longwave Radiation W m-2 average, positive up
rlut Outgoing Longwave Radiation W m-2 average, positive up
rsdt TOA Incident Shortwave Radiation W m-2 average, positive down
rsus Surface Upwelling Shortwave Radiation W m-2 average, positive up
rsut TOA Reflected Shortwave Radiation W m-2 average, positive up
snd Snow Depth m instantaneous
snm Snow Melt kg m-2 s-1 average
tauu Surface Downward Flux of Eastward Momentum Pa average, positive down
tauv Surface Downward Flux of Northward Momentum Pa average, positive down
ts Surface (skin) Temperature K instantaneous
zg500 500 hPa Geopotential Height m instantaneous
zmla Atmospheric Boundary Layer Thickness m instantaneous
 
Table 4: Fixed/static surface fields (2-D)
Var. Long Name Units Notes
landtyp Land-Cover Type -  
lat Latitude of Grid Points deg. N  
lon Longitude of Grid Points deg. E  
mrsofc Capacity of Soil to Store Water kg m-2  
orog Surface Altitude m  
rootd Root Depth m  
sftlf Land Area Fraction 1 land/ocean
 
Table 5: Atmospheric fields (3-D)
Var. Long Name Units Notes
cli Cloud Ice Fraction of Layer 1 instantaneous
clw Cloud Liquid Water Fraction of Layer 1 instantaneous
hus Specific Humidity kg kg-1 instantaneous
ta Temperature K instantaneous
ua Zonal Wind Component m s-1 instantaneous
va Meridional Wind Component m s-1 instantaneous
wa Vertical Wind Component m s-1 instantaneous

Notes:

The "screen height" or "reference height" is 1.5-2 m above the surface.

Quantities that can be used for storage terms in budgets are instantaneous values. Quantities that are fluxes in budgets are average values for the 3-hr period prior to the reporting time.

3-hourly values (Tables 2, 3, & 5) are reported at 03 UTC, 06 UTC, … 24 UTC.

The "day" for daily min/max values (Table 1) is from 06 UTC - 06 UTC, with the date stamp referring to the beginning time.

Table 1

Minimum and maximum daily temperatures [tasmax, tasmin] are recorded from instantaneous screen height temperatures sampled every time step during the course of the day.

Table 2

Winds [uas, vas] are true west-east and south-north winds, i.e., rotated from the model's grid to the earth's longitudinal and latitudinal directions.

Surface air temperature [tas] and specific humidity [huss] are recorded from screen height values, 2 meters above the surface.

Surface winds [uas, vas] are recorded from "anemometer level" values, 10 meters above the surface.

Units for precipitation [pr] and surface pressure [ps] are MKS, following CF standards.

Table 3

Snow depth [snd] is snow-water equivalent and is the average depth over the entire grid box, even if the model allows snow to cover a fraction of the grid box.

Table 4

Land-cover type [landtyp] is a vegetation index linked to a table supplying land-cover descriptions.

Table 5

3-D fields are provided very 25 hPa from 1050 hPa to 25 hPa.

Note that according to the CF conventions, ice and liquid cloud water [cli, clw] are each reported as a ratio: (cloud-water mass)/(mass of gas+condensed constituents), i.e., more like specific humidity than mixing ratio.