The third phase of North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS-3) is currently in development.
Note that the NLDAS-3 data is not yet publicly available. Please check this page for updates on data availability.
A NASA EarthData VEDA story on the development of NLDAS-3 is now published. It includes some sample not-final precipitation data from NLDAS-3 as well as Jupyter Notebooks to examine the data and compare it to NLDAS-2 precipitation.
Please feel free to ask questions and contribute to discussions on the NLDAS-3 GitHub.
POC (Points of Contact) for NLDAS-3:
To receive updates on NLDAS-3 datasets and workshops, please sign up using this Google Form.
Third NLDAS-3 workshop (10 April 2025):
Recording of NLDAS-3 Drought Monitoring Workshop (co-hosted with NOAA NIDIS and the National Drought Mitigation Center).
Slides presented during the 3rd NLDAS-3 workshop.
Feedback and breakout sessions slides from the 3rd NLDAS-3 workshop.
Second NLDAS-3 workshop (29 July 2024):
Recording of 2nd NLDAS-3 Stakeholder Workshop, with updates on NLDAS-3 development.
Following this workshop, we published a question/answers and discussion document on NLDAS-3.
First NLDAS-3 workshop (08 November 2023):
Recording of 1st NLDAS-3 Stakeholder Workshop.
Table 1: List of NLDAS-3 surface forcing variables. Data is available hourly. Daily-averages will also be made available.
|
Variable
|
Short Name
|
Units
|
|
Near-surface air temperature
|
Tair
|
K
|
|
Near-surface specific humidity
|
Qair
|
kg kg-1
|
|
Surface pressure
|
PSurf
|
Pa
|
|
Northward wind
|
Wind_N
|
m s-1
|
|
Eastward wind
|
Wind_E
|
m s-1
|
| Downward longwave radiation at the surface |
LWdown
|
W m-2
|
| Downward shortwave radiation at the surface |
SWdown
|
W m-2
|
|
Total precipitation rate
|
Rainf
|
kg m-2 s-1
|
Table 2: List of expected Noah-MP LSM output variables from NLDAS-3. Data is daily-averaged except where noted below.
|
Variable
|
Short Name
|
Units
|
|
Surface net downward shortwave flux
|
SWnet_tavg
|
W m-2
|
|
Surface net downward longwave flux
|
LWnet_tavg
|
W m-2
|
|
Surface upward latent heat flux
|
Qle_tavg
|
W m-2
|
|
Surface upward sensible heat flux
|
Qh_tavg
|
W m-2
|
|
Downward heat flux in soil
|
Qg_tavg
|
W m-2
|
|
Snowfall rate (frozen)
|
Snowf_tavg
|
kg m-2 s-1
|
|
Rainfall rate (liquid)
|
Rainf_tavg
|
kg m-2 s-1
|
|
Total evapotranspiration
|
Evap_tavg
|
kg m-2 s-1
|
|
Surface runoff amount
|
Qs_tavg
|
kg m-2 s-1
|
|
Subsurface runoff amount
|
Qsb_tavg
|
kg m-2 s-1
|
|
Surface temperature
|
AvgSurfT_tavg
|
K
|
|
Daily minimum surface temperature
|
AvgSurfT_min
|
K
|
|
Daily maximum surface temperature
|
AvgSurfT_max
|
K
|
|
Liquid water content of surface snow
|
SWE_tavg
|
kg m-2
|
|
Snow depth
|
SnowDepth_tavg
|
m
|
|
Soil moisture - 4 layers
[0-10cm; 10-40cm; 40-100cm; 100-200cm]
|
SoilMoist_tavg
|
m3 m-3
|
|
Soil temperature - 4 layers
[0-10cm; 10-40cm; 40-100cm; 100-200cm]
|
SoilTemp_tavg
|
K
|
|
Potential evapotranspiration
|
PotEvap_tavg
|
kg m-2 s-1
|
|
Vapor pressure deficit
|
VPD_tavg
|
Pa
|
|
Vegetation transpiration
|
TVeg_tavg
|
kg m-2 s-1
|
|
Bare soil evaporation
|
ESoil_tavg
|
kg m-2 s-1
|
|
Total canopy water storage
|
CanopInt_tavg
|
kg m-2
|
|
Water table depth
|
WaterTableD_tavg
|
m
|
|
Terrestrial water storage
|
TWS_tavg
|
mm
|
|
Groundwater storage
|
GWS_tavg
|
mm
|
|
Surface snow area fraction
|
Snowcover_tavg
|
[-]
|
|
Gross primary production
|
GPP_tavg
|
g m-2 s-1
|
|
Net primary productivity
|
NPP_tavg
|
g m-2 s-1
|
|
Net ecosystem exchange
|
NEE_tavg
|
g m-2 s-1
|
|
Leaf area index
|
LAI_tavg
|
[-]
|
Table 3: List of expected HyMAP routing output variables from NLDAS-3. Data is daily-averaged.
|
Variable
|
Short Name
|
Units
|
|
Streamflow
|
Streamflow_tavg
|
m3 s-1
|
|
River depth
|
RiverDepth_tavg
|
m
|
|
Flooded fraction
|
FloodedFrac_tavg
|
[-]
|
|
Surface water elevation
|
SurfElev_tavg
|
m
|
|
Surface water storage
|
SWS_tavg
|
mm
|
