This May Met Éireann will be launching its ‘MÉRA’ climate reanalysis dataset.
This 35 year meteorological gridded dataset will have many potential applications within the Irish Agrometeorology community
“Climate reanalysis is a systematic approach used to produce meteorological datasets for climate monitoring and research. They are created using a fixed version of a forecast model and a data assimilation system which utilises historical observations and they produce parameters that are physically consistent and often not routinely observed. Thus, climate reanalyses have the potential to extend the knowledge gained from current observation networks.
Met Éireann has carried out a 35-year very high resolution (2.5 km horizontal grid) regional climate reanalysis for Ireland using the ALADIN-HIRLAM numerical weather prediction system (www.hirlam.org). This reanalysis spans the period 1981 to 2015 and includes surface, near-surface and atmospheric parameters and is the first of its kind for Ireland.
Overall, the model performed consistently over the 35-year time period and outperforms the ERA-Interim reanalysis, particularly in terms of standard deviations in screen-level temperatures and surface winds. ”
An initial analysis of the data is published in the ASR open-access journal: http://www.adv-sci-res.net/14/49/2017/
More information along with sample data sets and FAQs are available on the Met Éireann website under Weather News.
*Source Met Éireann website