Overview:

ERA5-Land is a reanalysis dataset providing a consistent view of the evolution of land variables over several decades at an enhanced resolution compared to ERA5. ERA5-Land has been produced by replaying the land component of the ECMWF ERA5 climate reanalysis. Reanalysis combines model data with observations from across the world into a globally complete and consistent dataset using the laws of physics. Reanalysis produces data that goes several decades back in time, providing an accurate description of the climate of the past.

Total precipitation:

Accumulated liquid and frozen water, including rain and snow, that falls to the Earth's surface. It is the sum of large-scale precipitation (that precipitation which is generated by large-scale weather patterns, such as troughs and cold fronts) and convective precipitation (generated by convection which occurs when air at lower levels in the atmosphere is warmer and less dense than the air above, so it rises). Precipitation variables do not include fog, dew or the precipitation that evaporates in the atmosphere before it lands at the surface of the Earth. This variable is accumulated from the beginning of the forecast time to the end of the forecast step. The units of precipitation are depth in metres. It is the depth the water would have if it were spread evenly over the grid box. Care should be taken when comparing model variables with observations, because observations are often local to a particular point in space and time, rather than representing averages over a model grid box and model time step.

The original ERA5-Land dataset (period: 2000 - 2020) has been reprocessed to:

- aggregate ERA5-Land hourly data to daily data (minimum, mean, maximum)

- while increasing the resolution from the native ERA5-Land resolution of 0.1 degree (~ 9 km) to 30 arc-sec (~ 1 km) by image fusion with CHELSA data (V1.2) (https://chelsa-climate.org/).

For each day we used the corresponding monthly long-term average of CHELSA. The aim was to use the fine spatial detail of CHELSA and at the same time preserve the general regional pattern and fine temporal detail of ERA5-Land. The steps included aggregation and enhancement, specifically:

1. spatially aggregate CHELSA to the resolution of ERA5-Land

2. calculate proportion of ERA5-Land / aggregated CHELSA

3. interpolate proportion with a Gaussian filter to 30 arc seconds

4. multiply the interpolated proportions with CHELSA

Using proportions ensures that areas without precipitation remain areas without precipitation. Only if there was actual precipitation in a given area, precipitation was redistributed according to the spatial detail of CHELSA.

Data available is the daily sum of precipitation.

Software used:

GDAL 3.2.2 and GRASS GIS 8.0.0 (r.resamp.stats -w; r.relief)

Original ERA5-Land dataset license:

https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/api/v2/terms/static/licence-to-use-copernicus-products.pdf

CHELSA climatologies (V1.2):

Data used: Karger D.N., Conrad, O., Böhner, J., Kawohl, T., Kreft, H., Soria-Auza, R.W., Zimmermann, N.E, Linder, H.P., Kessler, M. (2018): Data from: Climatologies at high resolution for the earth's land surface areas. Dryad digital repository. http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.5061/dryad.kd1d4

Original peer-reviewed publication: Karger, D.N., Conrad, O., Böhner, J., Kawohl, T., Kreft, H., Soria-Auza, R.W., Zimmermann, N.E., Linder, P., Kessler, M. (2017): Climatologies at high resolution for the Earth land surface areas. Scientific Data. 4 170122. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.122