Climate benchmarks and input parameters representing locations in 68 countries for a stochastic weather generator, CLIGEN

Abstract. This dataset contains input parameters for 12 703 locations around the world to parameterize a stochastic weather generator called CLIGEN. The are essentially monthly statistics relating daily precipitation, temperature, and solar radiation. is separated into three sub-datasets differentiated by having determined from 30-, 20-, 10-year record lengths. Input related precipitation were calculated primarily NOAA GHCN-Daily network. remaining various sources including global meteorological land-surface models that informed remote sensing other methods. new CLIGEN includes inputs in US, which compared selection of stations an existing US representing 2648 locations. validation showed reasonable agreement between two datasets, with majority showing less than 20 % discrepancy relative dataset. For minimum lengths used calculations, only small increase going towards shorter lengths, such average all was greater 5 has potential improve spatial coverage analysis variety applications reduce effort needed preparing climate inputs. available at National Agriculture Library Data Commons website https://data.nal.usda.gov/dataset/international-climate-benchmarks-and-input-parameters-stochastic-weather-generator-cligen (last access: November 2020) https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/1518706 (Fullhart et al., 2020a).