dataset · Global
TerraClimate: Monthly Climate and Climatic Water Balance for Global Terrestrial Surfaces, University of Idaho
TerraClimate is a dataset of monthly climate and climatic water balance for global terrestrial surfaces. It uses climatically aided interpolation, combining high-spatial resolution climatological normals from the [WorldClim dataset](https://www.worldclim.org/), with coarser spatial resolution, but time-varying data from [CRU Ts4.0](https://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/cru/data/cru_ts/) and the [Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA55)](https://jra.kishou.go.jp/JRA-55/index_en.html). Conceptually, the procedu
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Licence: CC0-1.0
Evidence quality: 36.1
Listed in gee public catalogue API on 2026-10-16; relevance/value screened (haiku).
Metadata checked: 2026-10-14T13:20:00.000Z
What's in it
- Data offered docs-verified
- actual evapotranspiration (aet) · climate water deficit (def) · Palmer Drought Severity Index (pdsi) · reference evapotranspiration (pet) · precipitation accumulation (pr) · runoff (ro) · soil moisture (soil) · downward surface shortwave radiation (srad) · snow water equivalent (swe) · minimum temperature (tmmn) · maximum temperature (tmmx) · vapor pressure (vap) · vapor pressure deficit (vpd) · wind speed at 10 m (vs)
- Coverage docs-verified
- Global land surfaces · 1958-01 to 2024-12
- Resolution docs-verified
- Spatial: 4638.3 m pixel (about 4.6 km, all bands); temporal: monthly
- Formats docs-verified
- Google Earth Engine ImageCollection
- Access docs-verified
- Free under CC0-1.0 (public domain). Accessed through Google Earth Engine, which requires registration and is free for research, education and nonprofit use; docs do not state terms for commercial use.
Useful for
- Use cases llm-inferred
- Long-term monthly precipitation and reference ET baseline for a catchment with no nearby gauge (desk-based water balance screening) · Historic soil moisture, runoff and climatic water deficit for drought or irrigation-demand context in environmental or agricultural assessments · Monthly temperature and vapour pressure deficit context for ecological or habitat baseline reports
- Audience llm-inferred
- hydrologists · flood consultants · water resources engineers · environmental consultants · ecologists · GIS analysts · planners
Limitations
- Constraints docs-verified
- Long-term trends are inherited from parent datasets and should not be used directly for independent trend assessments · Does not capture temporal variability finer than parent datasets, e.g. orographic precipitation ratios and inversions · Water balance model is very simple and does not account for vegetation heterogeneity or physiological response · Limited validation in data-sparse regions, e.g. Antarctica · Some band min/max values are estimated · Image status property may be 'provisional' rather than 'permanent' · Docs describe coverage as 'to present' but stated availability ends 2024-12-01 · Earth Engine registration is required
Evidence
- ee.ImageCollection('IDAHO_EPSCOR/TERRACLIMATE')
- https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/IDAHO_EPSCOR_TERRACLIMATE
Check upstream coverage, uncertainty and licence before use. Station observations are not forecasts or design levels.