LBA Regional Mean Climatology, 0.5-Deg, 1930-1960, V. 2.1 (Cramer and Leemans)

Version 2.1 has been used widely, notably by all groups participating in the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme's Net Primary Productivity (NPP) model intercomparison (Olsen et al. 2001). More information about the data can be found at ftp://daac.ornl.gov/data/lba/physical_climate/leemans_cramer/comp/cramer_lmns_readme.pdf. LBA was a cooperative international research initiative led by Brazil.

NASA was a lead sponsor for several experiments. LBA was designed to create the new knowledge needed to understand the climatological, ecological, biogeochemical, and hydrological functioning of Amazonia; the impact of land use change on these functions; and the interactions between Amazonia and the Earth system. More information about LBA be found at daac.ornl.gov/LBA/misc_amazon.html. tabase is a major update of the Leemans and Cramer database (Leemans and Cramer 1991).

It contains long-term monthly averages, for the period 1931-1960, of mean temperature, temperature range, precipitation, rain days and sunshine hours for the terrestrial surface of the globe, gridded at 0.5-degree longitude/latitude resolution. It was generated from a larger database, using the partial thin-plate splining algorithm developed by Michael F. Hutchinson, Canberra (Hutchinson and Bischof 1983). The current version is 2.1--this is the same version that is currently used widely around the globe, notably by all groups participating in the IGBP NPP model intercomparison.More information can be found at: ftp://daac.ornl.gov/data/lba/physical_climate/leemans_cramer/comp/README.