Dataset of Performance of Daily Reference Evapotranspiration Estimation by Different Methods Across Brazilian Climates

This database contains statistical performance metrics, per weather station, of 12 empirical methods for estimating daily reference evapotranspiration (ETo), evaluated against the standard FAO-56 Penman-Monteith method (Allen et al., 1998) at 584 automatic weather stations (AWS) of the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET), distributed throughout the Brazilian territory and classified by climate type according to the Köppen-Geiger classification performed by Alvares et al. (2013). Each row corresponds to a weather station and contains identification and location information for the station, the number of valid daily observations used in the analyses, the linear regression equations between each alternative method and the PM standard, and five statistical performance indicators calculated for each of the 12 evaluated methods: coefficient of determination (R², dimensionless), mean absolute error (MAE, mm day⁻¹), mean bias error (MBE, mm day⁻¹), percent bias (PBIAS, %), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency index (NASH, dimensionless), and Kling-Gupta efficiency index (KGE, dimensionless). The 12 evaluated methods are: Hargreaves-Samani (HS), Hamon (Ham), Camargo (Cam), Benevides-Lopez (BL), Jobson (Job), Makkink (Mak), Turc (Tur), Jensen-Haise (JH), Tanner-Pelton (TP), Priestley-Taylor (PT), FAO-24 Solar Radiation (RS), and FAO-24 Penman (Pen). This database supports the results of the article " Performance of Daily Reference Evapotranspiration Estimation by Different Methods Across Brazilian Climates" (Moro et al., 2025, Brazilian Journal of Meteorology, v. 40, e40250027. DOI: 10.1590/0102-778640250027), whose main conclusions indicate that the Turc and FAO-24 Penman methods showed the best overall performance in most Brazilian climates, and that the Hargreaves-Samani method is the recommended alternative when only air temperature data are available. File: Brazilian_Performance_ETo.xls Format: Microsoft Excel (.xls), data spreadsheet and information spreadsheet Rows: 585 (Header plus one row per weather station) Columns: 97 Detailed description of the columns: Station identification and location: Code: INMET station code Name: weather station name Latitude: geographical latitude Longitude: geographical longitude Altitude: altitude (m) Situation: station status (active/inactive) Start_Date: station operation starts date End_Date: data period end date Koppen_Climate: Köppen-Geiger climate classification of the station State: Brazilian state where the station is located Region: geographical region of Brazil Bioma: Brazilian biome where the station is located n: number of valid daily observations used in the analyses Method performance indicators: Reg_Eq_[Method]: linear regression equation (string, format "y = a + b·x") R_squared_[Method]: coefficient of determination MAE_[Method]: mean absolute error MBE_[Method]: mean bias error PBIAS_[Method]: percent bias NASH_[Method]: Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency index KGE_[Method]: Kling-Gupta efficiency index.