Gridded 20-year Parameterization of a Stochastic Weather Generator (CLIGEN) to Fill Gaps in Coverage in the Northern Hemisphere

CLImate GENerator (CLIGEN) is a stochastic weather generator that produces weather time series for soil erosion modeling and various other applications. The generated time series are statistically similar to observed long-term time series. This gridded CLIGEN parameterization with 0.25° spatial resolution complements existing global coverages by filling in remaining gaps that existed in the northern hemisphere (see the map layer *.kmz file with all grid point locations). The coverage is largely represented by Canada, Europe, and Russia and encompasses countries north of ~40°N with no previous known coverage. The CLIGEN inputs may be used to generate daily precipitation, temperature, dewpoint, solar radiation, and wind time series, as well as sub-daily precipitation patterns. The gridded parameterization allows CLIGEN time series to be generated at any point the grid. In particular, the dataset can provide climate drivers for climate-related research in ungauged areas where observed climate records are unavailable.

The data are formatted as CLIGEN *.par files, which are the only required input for CLIGEN. The files are contained in the "Grid Files" download with n=114,150 files corresponding to the total number of grid points. The files are labeled according to grid point lat/lon coordinates (WGS84) in decimal degrees. The labeling convention uses 'N' and 'E' (north, east) to represent coordinates with a positive sign and 'S' and 'W' (south, west) to represent coordinates with a negative sign.