Copernicus Hourly Total Precipitation

The Copernicus CCS ERA5 Hourly Total Precipitation dataset provides a global-scale long-term reanalysis of total precipitation estimations. Reanalysis combines model data with observations from across the world into a globally complete and consistent dataset.

The Copernicus CCS ERA5 Hourly Total Precipitation dataset is gridded to a regular lat-lon grid of 0.25 degrees for the reanalysis and 0.5 degrees for the uncertainty estimates. The reanalysis is available hourly from 1940 onwards, and is updated daily with a latency of about 5 days.

ERA5 is the fifth generation of atmospheric reanalysis to be produced at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The reanalysis is produced in operational mode. ERA5 is one component of a suite of climate data products developed and maintained by the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, hosted at ECMWF.

Reanalysis principle, called data assimilation, is based on the method used by numerical weather prediction centres, where every so many hours (12 hours at ECMWF) a previous forecast is combined with newly available observations in an optimal way to produce a new best estimate of the state of the atmosphere, called analysis, from which an updated, improved forecast is issued. Reanalysis works in the same way, but at reduced resolution to allow for the provision of a dataset spanning back several decades. Reanalysis does not have the constraint of issuing timely forecasts, so there is more time to collect observations, and when going further back in time, to allow for the ingestion of improved versions of the original observations, which all benefit the quality of the reanalysis product.

If you use this dataset for your work, please use the following references:

• DOI: 10.24381/cds.adbb2d47
• Dataset: Hersbach, H., Bell, B., Berrisford, P., Biavati, G., Horányi, A., Muñoz Sabater, J., Nicolas, J., Peubey, C., Radu, R., Rozum, I., Schepers, D., Simmons, A., Soci, C., Dee, D., Thépaut, J-N. (2023): ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present. Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS)
• Web Catalogue Entry: Copernicus Climate Change Service, Climate Data Store, (2023): ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present. Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS)