- Is the current growing season warmer than normal?
- What is the likelihood of drought in my area?
- How many frost days can I expect on average?
- Are the conditions favourable for development of crop diseases?
- What are the weather conditions in an area without any weather stations?
Global historical and near real-time weather information, such as basic hourly ERA5, is provided by the European Copernicus programme. AgERA5 makes the ERA5 data available to users in the agricultural domain. It includes agro-meteorological variables such as daily mean, minimum and maximum temperature, precipitation, humidity and incoming solar radiation. All land areas are covered at a spatial resolution of 10 by 10 km from 1979 until now.
Meteorological information is often hard to obtain and requires considerable processing to get a complete and consistent dataset useful for analysing agriculture productivity. With the AgERA5 dataset users can directly start with meaningful input for their analysis and models. The AgERA5 dataset is comprehensive and long-term. It can be used for many different studies and applications. For example, research organizations analyse their global crop trials to determine whether temperature and precipitation affect yields or if resistance to disease can be explained by differences in humidity levels. In many cases those field trials lack weather stations and then AgERA5 is a good alternative. Governments obtain AgERA5 to analyse historical weather conditions in crop producing areas underpinning yield predictions for policy support. The dataset can also be used to advise local growers of risks associated with growing certain crops, based on the historical precedents of extreme weather conditions in a area. Just to name a few.
- Long-term, consistent and complete dataset since 1979.
- Global coverage for all land areas.
- Indicators match input needs of most agro-ecological studies and models.
- Available as open data.
- Can be obtained through a web API
- Use the online service: https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.6c68c9bb
- Contact Hendrik Boogaard
