August 23, 2010 — Clark Labs is pleased to announce the release of another CD in their Global Data Archive Series. This new CD includes monthly global precipitation and sea surface temperature data, critical for climate monitoring and research. The CD is available for only $30 plus shipping and handling. It is also available as a downloadable product.

The CD includes the following datasets:

NOAA Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Monthly Global Precipitation Data from January 1979 - April 2009

NASA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Monthly Global Precipitation Data from January 1998 - April 2010

NOAA Global Optimum Interpolation (OI) Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Analysis from January 1982 - April 2010

Historical data is crucial for the analysis of earth trends and dynamics, particularly for change detection and prediction and long-term image series analysis. Time series analysis is critical for exploring such global events as El Nino and related sea surface temperature anomalies and impacts. Although such data is a valuable resource for analysts, publicly available and typically free, a significant amount of effort must be invested before the data is ready for analysis. Files for each time period, typically at sizes of over 100 mb, must be downloaded individually. The data then needs to be imported and pre-processed. This archive allows analysts and researchers to bypass the tedious yet necessary data download and preparation process, freeing up more effort for a project’s analytical goals.

This data archive is a particularly significant resource as input for the Earth Trends Modeler application within the IDRISI software. Earth Trends Modeler, an application for the exploration and analysis of image time series data, includes a coordinated suite of data mining tools and a variety of techniques for the extraction of global trends and the impacts of climate change. The new data archive can immediately be used within Earth Trends Modeler.

The CD also includes monthly atmospheric temperature data from Remote Sensing System (RSS), processed from the Microwave and Advanced Microwave Sounding Units on NOAA polar-orbiting platforms and in a 2.5 degree grid.

Learn more about the Global Monthly Data Archive Series.