http://www.ecmwf.int/en/research/climate-reanalysis/era-20c

ERA-20C
=======

ERA-20C is ECMWF's first atmospheric reanalysis of the 20th century, from
1900-2010. It assimilates observations of surface pressure and surface marine
winds only. It is an outcome of the ERA-CLIM project.

Product description
-------------------

ERA-20C was produced with IFS version Cy38r1 and the same surface and
atmospheric forcings as the final version of the atmospheric model integration
ERA-20CM. A coupled Atmosphere/Land-surface/Ocean-waves model is used to
reanalyse the weather, by assimilating surface observations. The ERA-20C
products describe the spatio-temporal evolution of the atmosphere (on 91
vertical levels, between the surface and 0.01 hPa), the land-surface (on 4
soil layers), and the ocean waves (on 25 frequencies and 12 directions).

The horizontal resolution is approximately 125 km (spectral truncation T159).
Note, atmospheric data are not only available on the native 91 model levels,
but also on 37 pressure levels (as in ERA-Interim), 16 potential temperature
levels, and the 2 PVU potential vorticity level.

Daily and invariant data are available from the ERA-20C Data Server. Monthly
means will be released at a later stage.

The assimilation methodology is 24-hour 4D-Var analysis, with variational bias
correction of surface pressure observations. Analysis increments are at T95
horizontal resolution (aprox. 210 km). The analyses provide the initial
conditions for subsequent forecasts that serve as backgrounds to the next
analyses. A 10-member ensemble was produced initially, to estimate the
spatio-temporal evolution of the background errors. Information about that
initial ensemble production is available from Poli et al. (2013).
Ensemble spreads will be released at a later stage.

The observations assimilated in ERA-20C include surface and mean sea level
pressures from ISPDv3.2.6 and ICOADSv2.5.1, and surface marine winds from
ICOADSv2.5.1. The observation feedback from ERA-20C, including, for example,
departures before and after assimilation and usage flags, will be released at
a later stage.

ERA-20C was produced in 2014 in about 6 weeks on ECMWF's IBM Power7
high-performance computer. This production employed 22 parallel streams:
Jan 1899-Dec 1904, Jan 1904-Dec 1909, etc... The first year of each stream
was only used for spin-up and discarded; the final product is made of the last
years of each stream.

Temporal resolution
-------------------

The temporal resolution of the daily products is usually 3-hourly.

Note, in the analysis products, some surface parameters are only available
6-hourly:

Sea-ice cover, Snow density, Sea surface temperature, Volumetric soil water
layer 1, Volumetric soil water layer 2, Volumetric soil water layer 3,
Volumetric soil water layer 4, Soil temperature level 1, Snow depth,
2 metre temperature, 2 metre dewpoint temperature, Soil temperature level 2,
Soil temperature level 3, Temperature of snow layer

Forecast steps
--------------

All forecasts are integrated daily, from 06 UTC, for +step hours. The
significance of the forecast step depends on whether the forecast parameter
is instantaneous or accumulated:

Significance of the forecast steps in ERA-20C

Step 								= S
Valid time, for instantaneous forecast parameters 		= VT
Accumulation period, for accumulated forecast parameters 	= AP

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
S	3 	6 	9 	12 	15 	18 	21 	24 	27
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VT 	09UTC 	12UTC 	15UTC 	18UTC 	21UTC 	00UTC	03UTC	06UTC	09UTC
						next	next	next	next
						day	day	day	day
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AP	06UTC	06UTC	06UTC	06UTC	06UTC	06UTC	06UTC	06UTC	06UTC
	to	to	to	to	to	to	to	to	to
	09UTC 	12UTC	15UTC	18UTC	21UTC	21UTC	00UTC	06UTC	09UTC
							next	next	next
							day	day	day
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unless otherwise noted, all forecast parameters are instantaneous. The list
below indicates the accumulated forecast parameters. These are only found on
model levels and at the surface:

* model levels:

Tendency of short wave radiation, Tendency of long wave radiation, Tendency
of clear sky short wave radiation, Tendency of clear sky long wave radiation,
Updraught mass flux, Downdraught mass flux, Updraught detrainment rate,
Downdraught detrainment rate, Total precipitation flux, Turbulent diffusion
coefficient for heat, Tendency of temperature due to physics, Tendency of
specific humidity due to physics, Tendency of u component due to physics,
Tendency of v component due to physics

* surface:

Surface runoff, Sub-surface runoff, Clear sky surface photosynthetically active
radiation, Total sky direct solar radiation at surface, Clear-sky direct solar
radiation at surface, Snow evaporation, Snowmelt, Large-scale precipitation
fraction, Downward UV radiation at the surface, Photosynthetically active
radiation at the surface, Accumulated Carbon Dioxide Net Ecosystem Exchange,
Accumulated Carbon Dioxide Gross Primary Production, Accumulated Carbon Dioxide
Ecosystem Respiration, Large-scale precipitation, Convective precipitation,
Snowfall, Boundary layer dissipation, Surface sensible heat flux, Surface
latent heat flux, Surface solar radiation downwards, Surface thermal radiation
downwards, Surface net solar radiation, Surface net thermal radiation, Top net
solar radiation, Top net thermal radiation, Eastward turbulent surface stress,
Northward turbulent surface stress, Evaporation, Sunshine duration, Eastward
gravity wave surface stress, Northward gravity wave surface stress, Gravity
wave dissipation, Runoff, Top net solar radiation, clear sky, Top net thermal
radiation, clear sky, Surface net solar radiation, clear sky, Surface net
thermal radiation, clear sky, TOA incident solar radiation, Vertically
integrated moisture divergence, Total precipitation, Convective snowfall,
Large-scale snowfall

Future product releases
-----------------------

As indicated above, expected additions to the ERA-20C Data Server include
monthly means, ensemble spreads, and the observation feedback.
Please check this page for updates.