ERA5 reanalysis data

From gfi

GFI is building up an archive of ERA5 reanalysis data on the local linux system cyclone.hpc.uib.no. ERA5 supersedes the ERA-Interim reanalysis data, which ended in August 2019. More information about the ERA5 reanalysis data set is available at ECMWF's ERA5 websites.

The ERA5 data files are available in two different CF-compatible netCDF formats (ETH Zurich format and Bergen format) at

/Data/gfi/share/era5


Data in ETH Zurich format

Data in the ETH Zurich format is collected in one subfolder:

ml/        3-hourly data on a regular 0.5 deg lat-lon grid, with model-level and pressure level files (see below)


Data in the ml-folder are contained in subdirectories for each year and month:

ml/yyyy/mm/[B|H|P|Z]yyyymmdd_hh

where yyyy is the year, mm the two-digit month, dd the two-digit day, and hh the two-digit hours, and Bxxx, Hxxx, Pxxx, Zxxx are different file types, as described in the table below. This format is the same used at the Atmospheric Dynamics group at IAC, ETH Zürich, Switzerland; the LSDP group at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany; and the Dynamical Meteorology Group, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.

Until now, the years 1999-2018 have been retrieved. The period will successively be extended back to 1979, and forward in time.

The data files contain the following variables:

ERA5 data files in ETH Zurich format format
File name Pyyyymmdd_hh Zyyyymmdd_hh Hyyyymmdd_hh Byyyymmdd_hh
Leveltype Model level Surface Pressure Pressure Surface
Variables T, Q, U, V, OMEGA, LWC, IWC, RWC, SWC LSP, CP, SF, SSHF, SLHF, BLH, TCC, U10M, V10M, MSL, PS, SSTK Z, T, Q, U, V Z PS, MSL, TCC, U10M, V10M, SSTK, CI, D2M, T2M, TCW, TCWV, VIWVD, E, MN2T, MX2T, SI, TTR, TTRC, WG10, LSP, CP, SF, SSHF, SLHF, BLH
Levels 40-137 - 900, 850, 800, 700, 600, 500, 400, 300, 250, 200, 100 hPa 1000, 975, 950, 925, 900, 875, 850, 825, 800, 775, 750, 700, 650, 600, 550, 500, 450, 400, 350, 300, 250, 225, 200, 175, 150, 125, 100, 70, 50, 30, 20, 10, 70, 5, 3, 2, 1 hPa -
Times available 00, 03, 06, 09, 12, 15, 18, 21 UTC

Note that the variables LSP, CP, SF, SSHF, SLHF, and BLH are derived as prognostic variables from the short-range forecast. Data valid at 00, 03, 06, 09 UTC are 06, 09, 12, 15 h forecast of the 18 UTC forecast of the previous day. Accordingly, data valid at 12, 15, 18, 21 UTC are 06, 09, 12, 15 h forecast of the 06 UTC forecast. The prognostic variables are accumulated over the previous 1 h.

Please see ECMWF ERA5 data documentation for parameter abbreviations.

Conditions of use: When using the ERA5 data from this archive please make sure to reference "Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) (2017): ERA5: Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate. Copernicus Climate Change Service Climate Data Store (CDS), date of citation" and acknowledge "ECMWF for providing ERA-5 data“. Also, please acknowledge "Michael Sprenger (ETH Zurich)“ for the support in providing the data.


Data in Bergen format

Data in the Bergen format is in the following subfolders:

pl/                  Pressure level data.
pl_tendencies/       Diabatic temperature tendencies on pressure levels.
pv2/                 Data on the PV2-surface.
sfc/                 Single-level data.
detected_features/   Weather events identified by various detection algorithms.
slope/               Isentropic slope data and its tendencies.

Data in these folders is organised in one file per month, variable and level, for example:

pl/ea.[ans|for].yyyymm.plev.var

This data is completely available for 1979-2022. Specifically, we have the following data available

ERA5 data files in Bergen format
Folder Data available (see [1] for parameter abbreviations) Details
sfc/ blh, msl, siconc, sp, sst, t2m, tcwv, u10, v10, viewvf, vinwf Instantaneous (ans)
cp, lsp, slhf, sshf, ssrd, ssr, strd, str, tsr, ttr Accumulated over previous 3 hours (for)
pl/ t, q, z, u, v, w Instantaneous (ans)
pl_tendencies/ mttlwrcs, mttlwr, mttpm, mttswrcs, mttswr Accumulated over previous 3 hours (for)
pv2/ u, v, pt, pres Instantaneous (ans)

The folder detected_features/ contains detected cyclones, anticyclones, fronts, jet axes, moisture transport axes, cold-air outbreaks, frontal volumes, Rossby wave breaking, and blocking events. For details on the different weather features refer to the README in the folder.

The folder slope/ contains data deriving from the isentropic slope framework (see Papritz and Spengler, 2015, for more details):

Variable name Description Equation Units Notes
slope Slope of isentropic surface S = abs(gradθz) m m-1 Instantaneous
tilt Tendency in slope due to tilting gradθz /S · gradθ wid m m-1 s-1 Instantaneous
diab Tendency in slope due to diabatic heating -dz/dθ gradθz /S · gradθ (dθ/dt) m m-1 s-1 Accumulated over 6-hour period centred on instantaneous time step (stored as instantaneous, ans)
iadv Tendency in slope due to isentropic advection u · gradθS m m-1 s-1 Instantaneous
w_ci Cross isentropic vertical velocity w - wiu m s-1 Instantaneous
mask_slope Combination of masks from slope, diab and tilt - 0-1 Instantaneous