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Robinson, E.L.; Blyth, E.; Clark, D.B.; Finch, J.; Rudd, A.C.

Climate hydrology and ecology research support system meteorology dataset for Great Britain (1961-2012) [CHESS-met]
(CHESS-met)

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THIS DATASET HAS BEEN SUPERSEDED The latest version is Climate hydrology and ecology research support system meteorology dataset for Great Britain (1961-2019) [CHESS-met]

If you need access to the archived version, please contact the EIDC

https://doi.org/10.5285/80887755-1426-4dab-a4a6-250919d5020c
1km resolution gridded meteorological variables over Great Britain for the years 1961-2012. This dataset contains time series of daily mean values of air temperature (K), specific humidity (kg kg-1), wind speed (m s-1), downward longwave radiation (W m-2), downward shortwave radiation (W m-2), precipitation (kg m-2 s-1) and air pressure (Pa), plus daily temperature range (K). These are the variables required to run the JULES land surface model [1] with daily disaggregation.

The precipitation data were obtained by scaling the Gridded estimates of daily and monthly areal rainfall (CEH-GEAR) daily rainfall estimates [2,3] to the units required for JULES input. Other variables were interpolated from coarser resolution datasets, taking into account topographic information.

[1] Best, M. J., Pryor, M., Clark, D. B., Rooney, G. G., Essery, R. L. H., Ménard, C. B., Edwards, J. M., Hendry, M. A., Porson, A., Gedney, N., Mercado, L. M., Sitch, S., Blyth, E., Boucher, O., Cox, P. M., Grimmond, C. S. B., and Harding, R. J.: The Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES), model description - Part 1: Energy and water fluxes, Geoscientific Model Development, 4, 677-699, doi:10.5194/gmd-4-677-2011, 2011.
[2] Tanguy, M., Dixon, H., Prosdocimi, I., Morris, D. G., Keller, V. D. J. (2014). Gridded estimates of daily and monthly areal rainfall for the United Kingdom (1890-2012) [CEH-GEAR]. NERC-Environmental Information Data Centre doi:10.5285/5dc179dc-f692-49ba-9326-a6893a503f6e
[3] Keller,V. D. J., Tanguy, M. , Prosdocimi, I. , Terry, J. A. , Hitt, O., Cole, S. J. , Fry, M., Morris, D. G., Dixon, H. (2015) CEH-GEAR: 1km resolution daily and monthly areal rainfall estimates for the UK for hydrological use. Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., 8, 83-112, www.earth-syst-sci-data-discuss.net/8/83/2015/ doi:10.5194/essdd-8-83-2015.
Publication date: 2015-11-13
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More information

View numbers valid from 01 June 2023 (information prior to this was not collected)

Format

netCDF

Spatial information

Study area
Spatial representation type
Raster
Spatial reference system
OSGB 1936 / British National Grid

Temporal information

Temporal extent
1961-01-01    to    2012-12-31

Provenance & quality

The precipitation was obtained by scaling the daily rainfall estimates from the CEH-Gridded Estimates of Areal Rainfall (CEH-GEAR) dataset [1,2] to units of kg m-2 s-1. The Met Office Rainfall Evaporation Calculation System (MORECS) [3,4] air temperature and vapour pressure, and hours of bright sunshine were interpolated to 1km resolution, then corrected for the local topography using the Integrated Hydrological Digital Terrain Model (IHDTM) [5] to find the CHESS-met air temperature (K), specific humidity (kg kg-1) and downward long- and shortwave radiation (W m-2). The wind speed (m s-1) was found by interpolating the MORECS wind speed, then correcting for topography using the UK Energy Technology Support Unit (ETSU) average wind speed dataset [6,7]. The daily temperature range (K) was reprojected from the CRU TS 3.21 monthly data [8,9]. The air pressure (Pa) was found by calculating a climatology of the WATCH Forcing Data (WFD) air pressure [10], then correcting for topography using the IHDTM. The data were created using software developed in Fortran 95 and python.

[1] Tanguy, M., Dixon, H., Prosdocimi, I., Morris, D. G., Keller, V. D. J. (2014). Gridded estimates of daily and monthly areal rainfall for the United Kingdom (1890-2012) [CEH-GEAR]. NERC-Environmental Information Data Centre doi:10.5285/5dc179dc-f692-49ba-9326-a6893a503f6e
[2] Keller,V. D. J., Tanguy, M. , Prosdocimi, I. , Terry, J. A. , Hitt, O., Cole, S. J. , Fry, M., Morris, D. G., Dixon, H. (2015) CEH-GEAR: 1km resolution daily and monthly areal rainfall estimates for the UK for hydrological use. Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., 8, 83-112, www.earth-syst-sci-data-discuss.net/8/83/2015/ doi:10.5194/essdd-8-83-2015.
[3] Thompson, N., Barrie, I. A., and Ayles, M.: The Meteorological Office rainfall and evaporation calculation system: MORECS, Meteorological Office, Bracknell, 1981.
[4] Hough, M. N., and Jones, R. J. A.: The United Kingdom Meteorological Office rainfall and evaporation calculation system: MORECS version 2.0-an overview, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 1, 227-239, 10.5194/hess-1-227-1997, 1997.
[5] Morris, D. G., and Flavin, R. W.: A digital terrain model for hydrology., Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling, 1, 250-262, 1990.
[6] Newton, K., and Burch, S. F.: Estimation of the UK wind energy resource using computer modelling techniques and map data, Energy Technology Support Unit, 50, 1985.
[7] Burch, S. F., and Ravenscroft, F.: Computer modelling of the UK wind energy resource: Final overview report., AEA Industrial Technology, 1992.
[8] CRU TS3.21: Climatic Research Unit (CRU) Time-Series (TS) Version 3.21 of High Resolution Gridded Data of Month-by-month Variation in Climate (Jan. 1901- Dec. 2012). 2013.
[9] Harris, I., Jones, P. D., Osborn, T. J., and Lister, D. H.: Updated high-resolution grids of monthly climatic observations - the CRU TS3.10 Dataset, International Journal of Climatology, 34, 623-642, Doi 10.1002/Joc.3711, 2014.
[10] Weedon, G. P., Gomes, S., Viterbo, P., Shuttleworth, W. J., Blyth, E., Osterle, H., Adam, J. C., Bellouin, N., Boucher, O., and Best, M.: Creation of the WATCH Forcing Data and Its Use to Assess Global and Regional Reference Crop Evaporation over Land during the Twentieth Century, Journal of Hydrometeorology, 12, 823-848, Doi 10.1175/2011jhm1369.1, 2011.

Licensing and constraints

THIS DATASET HAS BEEN SUPERSEDED The latest version is Climate hydrology and ecology research support system meteorology dataset for Great Britain (1961-2019) [CHESS-met]

If you need access to the archived version, please contact the EIDC

Licence terms and conditions apply

Cite this dataset as:
Robinson, E.L.; Blyth, E.; Clark, D.B.; Finch, J.; Rudd, A.C. (2015). Climate hydrology and ecology research support system meteorology dataset for Great Britain (1961-2012) [CHESS-met]. NERC Environmental Information Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/80887755-1426-4dab-a4a6-250919d5020c

Citations

Robinson, E. L., Blyth, E. M., Clark, D. B., Finch, J., & Rudd, A. C. (2017). Trends in atmospheric evaporative demand in Great Britain using high-resolution meteorological data. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 21(2), 1189–1224. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-1189-2017
Yan, W., Hutchins, M., Loiselle, S., & Hall, C. (2016). An Informatics Approach for Smart Evaluation of Water Quality Related Ecosystem Services. Annals of Data Science, 3(3), 251–264. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40745-015-0067-3
Yan, W., Hutchins, M., Loiselle, S., & Hall, C. (2015). An Informatics Approach for Smart Evaluation of Water Quality Related Ecosystem Services. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 178–185. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24474-7_24
Jenkins, J. M., Kowalski, M., & Alvarenga, E. F. S. (2018). Predictive modelling of water losses using random forests on weather covariates. In Water Supply (Vol. 18, Issue 6, pp. 2180–2187). IWA Publishing. https://doi.org/10.2166/ws.2018.044
Kiraz, M., Coxon, G. & Wagener, T. (2023) A priori selection of hydrological model structures in modular modelling frameworks: application to Great Britain. Hydrological Sciences Journal 68, 2042–2056. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2023.2251968
Jacque, H., Knox, J.W., Gush, M., & Holman, I.P. (2023). Modelling the potential of rainwater harvesting to improve the sustainability of landscape and public garden irrigation. In Journal of Environmental Management (Vol. 348, p. 119167). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.119167

Supplemental information

Best, M.J., Pryor, M., Clark, D.B., Rooney, G.G., Essery, R.L.H., Ménard, C.B., Edwards, J.M., Hendry, M.A., Porson, A., Gedney, N., Mercado, L.M., Sitch, S., Blyth, E., Boucher, O., Cox, P.M., Grimmond, C.S.B., and Harding, R.J. (2011). The Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES), model description - Part 1: Energy and water fluxes, Geoscientific Model Development, 4, 677-699
Keller,V.D.J., Tanguy, M. , Prosdocimi, I. , Terry, J.A. , Hitt, O., Cole, S.J. , Fry, M., Morris, D.G., Dixon, H. (2015) CEH-GEAR: 1km resolution daily and monthly areal rainfall estimates for the UK for hydrological use. Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., 8, 83-112
The CHESS Explorer application provides the ability for users to preview the data, visualise maps of the different meteorological variables, and understand how they vary across the country and through time.
MAJIC (Managing Access to Jules in the Cloud) is a web application that allows users to drive the JULES land-surface model with the CHESS-met dataset within a high performance computing environment over the web.

Correspondence/contact details

Robinson, E.
UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Maclean Building, Benson Lane, Crowmarsh Gifford
Wallingford
Oxfordshire
OX10 8BB
UNITED KINGDOM
 enquiries@ceh.ac.uk

Authors

Robinson, E.L.
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Blyth, E.
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Clark, D.B.
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Finch, J.
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Rudd, A.C.
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Other contacts

Custodian
NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre
 info@eidc.ac.uk
Publisher
NERC Environmental Information Data Centre
 info@eidc.ac.uk

Additional metadata

Topic categories
climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere
INSPIRE theme
Meteorological geographical features
Keywords
air pressure , air temperature , atmospheric humidity , atmospheric precipitation , Climate and climate change , environmental pressure , Great Britain , gridded data , longwave radiation , Modelling , rainfall , shortwave radiation , specific humidity , wind , wind speed
Last updated
21 March 2025 13:36