Land & Water

WorldClim - Global Climate Data (WORLDCLIM)

WorldClim is a set of global climate layers (gridded climate data in GeoTiff format) that can be used for mapping and spatial modeling. WordlClim version 2 contains average monthly climatic gridded data for the period 1970-2000 with different spatial resolutions, from 30 seconds (~1 km2) to 10 minutes (~340 km2). The dataset includes the main climatic variables (monthly minimum, mean and maximum temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, wind speed and water vapour pressure) as well as 19 derived bioclimatic variables (annual mean temperature, mean diurnal range,isothermality, temperature seasonality, max. temperature of warmest month, min. temperature of coldest month, temperature annual range, mean temperature of wettest quarter, mean temperature of driest quarter, mean temperature of warmest quarter, mean temperature of coldest quarter, annual precipitation,  precipitation of wettest month, precipitation of driest month, precipitation seasonality (coefficient of variation), precipitation of wettest quarter, precipitation of driest quarter, precipitation of warmest quarter, precipitation of coldest quarter).

The older version of WorldClim (version 1.4) contains gridded data for the same variables for the period 1960-1990, as well as temperature and precipitation projections by the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report using several general circulation models (GCMs) for four representative concentration pathways (RCPs), and GCM-based temperature and precipitation simulations for the Mid-Holocene (about 6000 years ago), the Last Glacial Maximum (about 22,000 years ago), and the Last Interglacial (120,000 – 140,000 years ago).

The downscaling approach used to generate high-resolution gridded data is explained by Hijmans et al. (2005). GIS software, commercial or public-access, is needed for data visualization and further processing.

 

Source (link)
Scale
Global, Regional, National, Sub-national/Province/District, Watershed/Basin/Landscape
Type
Maps/GIS
Applicability
Global, Regional, National, Sub-national/ Province/ District, Watershed/Basin/Landscape
Category
Databases/information systems
Sub-Category
Climatic databases
Thematic areas
Climate
User Category
Technical specialist, Modeller