Vapor pressure data for the conterminous United States at a 30 arcsecond resolution for 28 CMIP5 Global Climate Models under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios

We calculated monthly vapor pressure values for the conterminous United States from 1950 to 2100 from global climate models (GCM) output published by Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). These data include 28 GCMs under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP 8.5 climate change scenarios. Vapor pressure data were then downscaled from their original spatial resolutions to 30 arcsecond using a statistical downscaling method called Bias Correction-Spatial Disaggregation (BCSD). These monthly vapor pressure data are provided as separate NetCDF files for each year (1950-2100), each of 28 GCM's, and each scenario (historical, RCP 4.5, and RCP 8.5).
Vapor pressure (VPR) is the amount of water vapor held in the air. Vapor pressure deficit (VPD) is the difference between the total amount of water vapor air can hold at a given temperature and the actual amount of water held, expressed as partial pressure of water. VPD exerts a direct effect on plant transpiration by controlling the opening and closing of stomata (REF). VPD values are relevant for simulating vegetation response to climate, estimating drought conditions, and to simulate wildfire dynamics. Spatial vegetation or fire models require VPD dataset in a gridded format, along with other climate variables. Thus, these data may be used as input for vegetation, fire, drought or earth system models.
Package was originally published on 02/22/23. On 03/20/2023 a subset of the data were made available for immediate download. Metadata updated on 04/28/2023 to include reference to newly published article.