NLDAS-2 Model Data Description/Information

This page describes the model data for Phase 2 of the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS-2). The data are in 1/8th-degree grid spacing and range from 02 Jan 1979 to present. The temporal resolution is hourly. The file format is WMO GRIB-1.

There are currently four land-surface models with data available over the NLDAS-2 period. They are:

LSM Reference(s) Schematic
Mosaic Koster and Suarez (1992)
Koster and Suarez (1994)		 Mosaic LSM schematic
Noah-2.8 Chen et al. (1996)
Koren et al. (1999)
Ek et al. (2003)
Mitchell et al. (2004)
Ek et al. (2011)
Xia et al. (2012)		 Noah LSM schematic
SAC Burnash et al. (1973)
Anderson (1973)
Koren et al. (2000)		 SAC LSM schematic
VIC-4.0.3 Liang et al. (1994)
Liang et al. (1996)
Liang et al. (1996)
Wood et al. (1997)
 VIC LSM schematic

NLDAS-2 Mosaic, Noah, and VIC data are available at the NASA GES DISC. NLDAS-2 SAC data will also be added in the near future.

NLDAS-2 Mosaic, Noah, SAC, and VIC data are also available at the NOAA/NCEP/EMC NLDAS ftp servers.