Public access to this dataset will be closed on June 1st, 2023. For more information and possible alternatives, please consult the dedicated page on Decommissioning of ECMWF Public Datasets service.
CERA-20C is a climate reanalysis dataset of the period 1901 to 2010.
CERA-20C is produced by ECMWF, it is a 10-member ensemble, and it is based on the CERA assimilation system, which assimilates only surface pressure and marine wind observations as well as ocean temperature and salinity profiles. CERA-20C is an outcome of the ERA-CLIM2 project. For further details please see the article below from the ECMWF Newsletter 150, page 25, and/or the description on the ECMWF product page.
Known issues
1. Sea-ice accumulation
In CERA-20C, there are several issues with settings of the sea-ice coupling with the IFS that result in too cold atmospheric surface temperature over the sea-ice regions. The summer melting is not strong enough and sea-ice is accumulating over the years, particularly in the Arctic. The sea surface temperature relaxation allows to limit the impact on the sea-ice extent.
2. Discontinuity between streams
CERA-20C was conducted in 14 streams of 8 years with two-year overlap with initial conditions from uncoupled ocean and atmosphere reanalyses. There is an initialization shock at the start of each stream. While the atmosphere is adjusting relatively fast, the ocean needs much more than two years to reach equilibrium. The ocean model drift is visible in the CERA-20C record particularly in the early 20th century and in the ocean interior where the observational constraint is low.
References:
- Laloyaux, P., Balmaseda, M., Dee, D., Mogensen, K. and Janssen, P. (2016), A coupled data assimilation system for climate reanalysis. Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc., 142: 65-78. doi:10.1002/qj.2629
- Laloyaux, P., de Boisséson, E., Dahlgren, P. (2016), CERA-20C: An Earth system approach to climate reanalysis. ECMWF newsletter, 150: 25-30. doi:10.21957/ffs36birj2
- Additional references available from the ECMWF website
