Sc. Piper et Ef. Stewart, A GRIDDED GLOBAL DATA SET OF DAILY TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION FOR TERRESTRIAL BIOSPHERIC MODELING, Global biogeochemical cycles, 10(4), 1996, pp. 757-782
The first global terrestrial gridded data set of the daily average and
range of temperature and daily precipitation has been developed, inte
nded for use in terrestrial biospheric modeling. Data for the year 198
7 are shown to illustrate our methodology. Daily station data, primari
ly from the World Meteorological Organization global synoptic surface
network of stations, have been extensively quality checked and interpo
lated to a 1x1 degree grid by using a nearest neighbors interpolation
scheme. Annual averages of the daily average temperatures have been co
mpared with 1987 temperatures constructed from data supplied by P.D. J
ones (personal communication, 1996). Agreement between these two data
sets is good, except in some areas of the southern hemisphere where st
ation coverage is poor. Monthly and annual totals of the daily precipi
tation data have been compared with the monthly 1987 data set produced
by the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre. Agreement between the
two data sets is good over much of the northern hemisphere and South
America; however, large discrepancies are seen in east-central and sou
th-central Africa and in most of Australia, primarily due to the poor
station coverage there. Comparison of the time series from individual
stations with those from the gridded data set indicate that the day-to
-day variation of temperature and the fraction of wet days are preserv
ed, except in the tropics where wet days are overestimated. Station de
nsities have been tabulated in terms of total annual net primary produ
ctivity to identify countries where increases in station data will be
most effective for terrestrial biospheric modeling.