We are pleased to announce that two new datasets have been published in the Climate Data Store (CDS):
Water vapour is an Essential Climate Variable as it provides the basis for all cloud formation, cloud physics and furthermore influences the Earth's heat budget due to its high absorbance of long and short-wave radiation. Total column water vapour (TCWV) is a measure of the integrated water vapour content of the atmosphere.
The Monthly total column water vapour over land and ocean from 2002 to 2012 derived from satellite observations dataset provides a combination of the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) retrievals in the near-infrared (NIR) over land surfaces and coastal areas with the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) TCWV retrievals in the microwave spectra over ocean surfaces.
The related dataset, the Monthly and 6-hourly total column water vapour over ocean from 1988 to 2020 derived from satellite observations dataset provides TCWV data over ocean only but at a higher time resolution computed using a different set of sensors and algorithms.
The datasets may now be downloaded from the Climate Data Store either interactively using the CDS web interface ("Download data") or programmatically using the CDS API service. The datasets are both CDS Toolbox compatible.
For any enquiries regarding this dataset, please contact us.
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