A High-resolution Dataset of Meteorological Drought Indices over China for 2015-2100 Based on CMIP6

This dataset covers the Chinese region, with a temporal range from 2015 to 2100 and a spatial resolution of 0.1° × 0.1°. It includes three meteorological drought indices: the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), the China-Z Index (CZI), and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). The data are based on precipitation and temperature outputs from 20 climate models in CMIP6 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6), corrected using the China Meteorological Forcing Dataset (CMFD) through the quantile mapping (QM) method. Using the bias-corrected data, high-resolution precipitation and temperature projection datasets for the Chinese region (1979–2100) were generated via multi-model ensemble averaging. Subsequently, high-resolution (0.1° × 0.1°) meteorological drought index datasets for the period 2015–2100 were calculated. The drought indices were derived based on precipitation and temperature data under different emission scenarios, including SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5. The total size of the dataset is approximately 5 GB, with each drought index corresponding to a separate file for each emission scenario. All drought indices are calculated on a three-month time scale, with the first two months of data being NaN. The temporal range of the drought indices spans from January 2015 to December 2100. SPI, CZI, and SPEI are all dimensionless indices. This dataset provides high-resolution and high-quality data support for research on climate change and drought.