ERA5 reanalysis data
Documentation of the ERA5 archive at GFI
GFI is building up an archive of ERA5 reanalysis data on the local linux system cyclone.hpc.uib.no. ERA5 supersedes the ERA-Interim reanalysis data, which ended in August 2019. More information about the ERA5 reanalysis data set is available at ECMWF's ERA5 websites.
The ERA5 data files are available in a CF-compatible netCDF format on cyclone.hpc.uib.no and other computers that mount the UiB linux system at
/Data/gfi/share/era5
At GFI, we share the data format with the Atmospheric Dynamics group at IAC, ETH Zürich, Switzerland; the LSDP group at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany; and the Dynamical Meteorology Group, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. The data are organised as follows
ml/ 3-hourly data on a regular 0.5 deg lat-lon grid, with model-level and pressure level files (see below) pl/ pressure level data following the format of ERA-interim. pl_tendencies/ diabatic temperature tendencies on pressure levels, following the format of ERA-interim. pv2/ Data on the PV2-surface following the format of ERA-interim. sfc/ Single-level data following the format of ERA-interim.
Data in the ml-folder are contained in subdirectories for each year and month:
ml/yyyy/mm/[B|H|P|Z]yyyymmdd_hh
where yyyy is the year, mm the two-digit month, dd the two-digit day, and hh the two-digit hours, and Bxxx, Hxxx, Pxxx, Zxxx are different file types, as described in the table below.
Until now, the years 1999-2018 have been retrieved, the period will successively be extended back to 1979, and forward in time.
Data in the pl_*, sfc and pv2-folders is organised in one file per month, variable and level, for example:
pl/ea.[ans|for].YYYYMM.PLEV.VAR
This data is completely available for 1979-2020.
The data files contain the following variables:
| ERA5 data files | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| File name | Pyyyymmdd_hh | Zyyyymmdd_hh | Hyyyymmdd_hh | Byyyymmdd_hh | |
| Leveltype | Model level | Surface | Pressure | Pressure | Surface |
| Variables | T, Q, U, V, OMEGA, LWC, IWC, RWC, SWC | LSP, CP, SF, SSHF, SLHF, BLH, TCC, U10M, V10M, MSL, PS, SSTK | Z, T, Q, U, V | Z | PS, MSL, TCC, U10M, V10M, SSTK, CI, D2M, T2M, TCW, TCWV, VIWVD, E, MN2T, MX2T, SI, TTR, TTRC, WG10, LSP, CP, SF, SSHF, SLHF, BLH |
| Levels | 40-137 | - | 900, 850, 800, 700, 600, 500, 400, 300, 250, 200, 100 hPa | 1000, 975, 950, 925, 900, 875, 850, 825, 800, 775, 750, 700, 650, 600, 550, 500, 450, 400, 350, 300, 250, 225, 200, 175, 150, 125, 100, 70, 50, 30, 20, 10, 70, 5, 3, 2, 1 hPa | - |
| Times available | 00, 03, 06, 09, 12, 15, 18, 21 UTC | ||||
Note that the variables LSP, CP, SF, SSHF, SLHF, and BLH are derived as prognostic variables from the short-range forecast. Data valid at 00, 03, 06, 09 UTC are 06, 09, 12, 15 h forecast of the 18 UTC forecast of the previous day. Accordingly, data valid at 12, 15, 18, 21 UTC are 06, 09, 12, 15 h forecast of the 06 UTC forecast. The prognostic variables are accumulated over the previous 1 h.
Please see ECMWF ERA5 data documentation for parameter abbreviations.
Conditions of use: When using the ERA5 data from this archive please make sure to reference "Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) (2017): ERA5: Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate. Copernicus Climate Change Service Climate Data Store (CDS), date of citation" and acknowledge "ECMWF for providing ERA-5 data“. Also, please acknowledge "Michael Sprenger (ETH Zurich)“ for the support in providing the data.