Recommended Citations:
Jonghun Kam, P. C. D. Milly, and Krista A. Dunne, 2018, Monthly Time Series of Precipitation, Air Temperature, and Net Radiation for 2,673 Gaged River Basins Worldwide: U. S. Geological Survey, https://doi.org/10.5066/F7SJ1JVG. |
This is the first of two datasets containing derived data necessary to reproduce the results of the associated journal article: "On the Sensitivity of Annual Streamflow to Air Temperature." This first dataset contains basic basin characteristics of 2,673 gaged basins worldwide, along with associated monthly time series of basin-mean 1) precipitation (CRU (1901-2015) and GPCC(1901-2013)), 2) air temperature (CRU (1901-2015)), and 3) net radiation (1984-2007). The information for basin characteristics is available including including latitudes, longitudes, area (sq. km), and elevation (meters). The streamflow data themselves are available directly from the Global Runoff Data Centre. From the inventory of discharge data holdings of the Global Runoff Data Centre, 2,673 stream gages were selected for which
(1) at least 25 complete calendar years of monthly data overlapped in time with available climate data; (2) 500-m-resolution basin gridded file were created from the shape files that are available at Global Runoff Data Centre (http://www.bafg.de/GRDC/EN/02_srvcs/22_gslrs/222_WSB/watershedBoundaries_node.html); (3) the Global Reservoir and Dam database listed no artificial reservoirs located within the drainage basin; and (4) mean reported discharge did not exceed either of two estimates of basin precipitation by more than a factor of 10. Monthly precipitation data from the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre, both precipitation and temperature from University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, and net radiation data from NASA, all on 0.5-degree grids, were areally averaged over the basins. |
