HadEX3: Global land-surface climate extremes indices v3.0.4 (1901-2018)

HadEX3 is a land-surface dataset of climate extremes indices available on a 1.875 x 1.25 longitude-latitude grid. These 29 indices have been developed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI). Daily precipitation, as well as maximum and minimum temperature observations, are used to calculate these indices at each station. The daily data, as well as indices, have been supplied, quality controlled and combined to make a gridded set of NetCDF files covering 1901-2018 (inclusive).

Spatial coverage is determined by the number of stations present at each time point as well as the spatial correlation structure between the stations for each index. The spatial coverage is lowest at the beginning of the dataset, rising until around 1960 where it plateaus, and then declines slightly after 2010.

All indices are available as annual quantities, with a subset also available on a monthly basis. A number of the indices use a reference period to determine thresholds. For these, we provide two versions, one set using 1961-1990 and another using the more recent 1981-2010 (these reference periods have been indicated in the file name as either 'ref-6190' or 'ref-8110').

Version 3.0.4 was added due to an error in how the Rx1day and Rx5day data were being handled for one of the West African data sources. More details can be found in the HadEX3 blog under 'Details/Docs' tab.

Additionally, an extension to HadEX3, comprising additional indices recommended by the WMO Expert Team on Sector-specific Climate Indices (ET-SCI), has been produced. These data are available in a separate dataset connected to this record, marked as supplemental to this dataset.