Input data set: W5E5

The W5E5 dataset was compiled to support the bias adjustment of climate input data for the impact assessments carried out in phase 3b of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP3b).

Version 2.0 of the W5E5 dataset covers the entire globe at 0.5° horizontal and daily temporal resolution from 1979 to 2019. Data sources of W5E5 are version 2.0 of WATCH Forcing Data methodology applied to ERA5 data (WFDE5; Weedon et al., 2014; Cucchi et al., 2020), ERA5 reanalysis data (Hersbach et al., 2020), and precipitation data from version 2.3 of the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP; Adler et al., 2003).

W5E5 is a merged dataset. It combines WFDE5 data over land with ERA5 data over the ocean. The mask used for the merge is included in the dataset. The mask is equal to 1 over land and equal to 0 over the ocean.

Over land, orog is the surface altitude used for elevation corrections in WFDE5. For all other variables already included in WFDE5 (huss, prsn, ps, rlds, rsds, sfcWind, tas), W5E5 data over land are equal to the daily mean values of the corresponding hourly WFDE5 data. W5E5 hurs over land is the daily mean of hourly hurs computed from hourly WFDE5 huss, ps, and tas using the equations of Buck (1981) as described in Buck (2010). W5E5 pr over land is the daily mean of the sum of hourly WFDE5 rainfall and snowfall. Note that W5E5 pr and prsn over land are based on WFDE5 rainfall and snowfall bias-adjusted using GPCC monthly precipitation totals. W5E5 psl over land is the daily mean of hourly psl computed from hourly WFDE5 orog, ps, and tas according to psl = ps * exp((g * orog) / (r * tas)), where g is gravity, and r is the specific gas constant of dry air. Lastly, W5E5 tasmax and tasmin over land are the daily maximum and minimum, respectively, of hourly WFDE5 tas.

Over the ocean, W5E5 data are based on temporally (from hourly to daily resolution) and spatially (from 0.25° to 0.5° horizontal resolution) aggregated ERA5 data. The spatial aggregation using first-order conservative remapping was always done after the temporal aggregation. For tasmax and tasmin, hourly tas values were aggregated to daily maximum and minimum values, respectively. For all other variables, hourly values were aggregated to daily mean values. Variables unavailable in ERA5 (huss, hurs, sfcWind, orog) were first derived from available variables at hourly temporal and 0.25° horizontal resolution and then aggregated like all other variables. huss and hurs were derived from Near Surface Dewpoint Temperature, ps, and tas using the equations of Buck (1981) as described in Buck (2010). sfcWind was derived from Eastward Near-Surface Wind (uas) and Northward Near-Surface Wind (vas) according to sfcWind = sqrt(uas * uas + vas * vas). orog is equal to surface geopotential divided by gravity. Lastly, pr and prsn were bias-adjusted such that monthly W5E5 precipitation totals match GPCP version 2.3 values over the ocean. Monthly rescaling factors used for this purpose were computed following the scale-selective rescaling procedure described by Balsamo et al. (2010).

Compared to W5E5 v1.0 (Lange, 2019), W5E5 v2.0 covers three additional years (2017-2019) and is based on WFDE5 v2.0 instead of WFDE5 v1.0 over land. Differences between the two WFDE5 versions are threefold. First, more recent versions of CRU TS (v4.04 compared to v4.03) and GPCC (v2020 compared to v2018) were used for bias adjustment in v2.0. Secondly, a bug that affected the computation of rsds was fixed in v2.0. This has reduced the annual global (land) mean rsds by about 2 W m-2. Lastly, the method used for the bias adjustment of the monthly mean diurnal temperature range was changed from a purely multiplicative method to a mixed multiplicative-additive method, see the product user guide of WFDE5 v2.0 (C3S, 2021). This update has reduced the intra-monthly variability of the diurnal temperature range for months and grid cells where this range is biased low in ERA5. As a result, the excessively high daily maximum temperature values that occurred in some months and grid cells in v1.0 do no longer occur in v2.0.

For external users, this dataset is available on the ISIMIP repository (https://data.isimip.org/).