Federal Ministry of Transportation and Digital Infrastructure Deutscher Wetterdienst
GPCC Logo
GPCC Drought Index Product (GPCC_DI), Version 1.1

Always quote citation when using data!
DOI for Scientific and Technical Data
10.5676/DWD_GPCC/DI_M_V1.1_100 (for 1.0° resolution)
Title
GPCC Drought Index Product (GPCC_DI) Version 1.1
Subtitle
Globally Gridded Drought Index with averaging periods 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 24 and 48 months; retrospective analysis
Citation
For 1.0° grid resolution:
Ziese, Markus; Becker, Andreas; Finger, Peter; Meyer-Christoffer, Anja; Schneider, Udo (2016): GPCC Drought Index Product (GPCC_DI) Version 1.1 at 1.0° DOI: 10.5676/DWD_GPCC/DI_M_V1.1_100
Creators
Ziese, Markus; Becker, Andreas; Finger, Peter; Meyer-Christoffer, Anja; Schneider, Udo
Publisher
Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC, http://gpcc.dwd.de/) at Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD)
Publication Year
2016
Summary
The Global Precipitation Climatology Centre drought index (GPCC_DI) is a combination of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI; McKee et al., 1993) with the DWD modification according to Pietzsch et al. (2011) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) according to Vicento-Serrano et al. (2009). The 'Full Data Monthly, Version 7' DOI:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/FD_M_V7_100 is used as precipitation input data. For the monthly mean temperature data NOAA's Climate Precdiction Center (CPC) Monthly Global Surface Air Temperature Data Set is utilized (Fan and van den Dool, 2008). The temperature data are applied to calculate the potential evapotranspiration (PET) according to Thornthwaite (1948). Parameters to calculate SPI and SPEI were referenced to 1952-2013. Due to the non-applicability of the gamma distribution for precipitation in arid regions the SPI can not be calculated there. On the other hand the PET can not be computed in cold regions applying the formula from Thornthwaite. Hence the GPCC_DI is calculated as the mean of the SPI and SPEI. If one of these indices can not be computed, the one available is used, yielding an almost global coverage of the GPCC_DI. The GPCC_DI is computed with aggregation periods of 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 24 and 48 months. Each aggregation period is stored in a separate netCDF-file. The GPCC_DI has a spatial resolution of 1° latitude by longitude using gridded input data fields at the same resolution.

References:
Fan et al., 2008, A global monthly land surface air temperature analysis for 1948 - present, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 113, p. D01103, DOI:10.1029/2007JD008470
McKee et al., 1993, The Relationship of Drought Frequency and Duration to Time Scales, Eighth Conference on Applied Climatology
Pietzsch et al., 2011, A modified drought index for WMO RA VI, Adv. in Science and Research, Vol. 6, p. 275-279, DOI:10.5194/asr-6-275-2011
Thornthwaite, 1948, An approach towards a rational classification of climate, Geographical Review, Vol. 38, p. 55-94
Vicente-Serrano et al., 2009, A Multiscalar Drought Index Sensitive to Global Warming: The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, Journal of Climate, Vol. 23, p. 1696-1718, DOI:10.1175/2009JCLI2909.1
Peer-reviewed Articles

"Global gridded precipitation over land: a description of the new GPCC First Guess Daily product"
K. Schamm (1,2) M. Ziese (1), A. Becker (1), P. Finger (1), A. Meyer-Christoffer (1), U. Schneider (1), M. Schröder (2), and P. Stender (1)
(1) Deutscher Wetterdienst, Global Precipitation Climatology Centre, 63067 Offenbach/M., Germany
(2) Deutscher Wetterdienst, Satellite Based Climate Monitoring, 63067 Offenbach/M., Germany
in Earth System Science Data, DOI: 10.5194/essd-6-49-2014

"GPCC's new land surface precipitation climatology based on quality-controlled in situ data and its role in quantifying the global water cycle"
U. Schneider, A. Becker, P. Finger, A. Meyer-Christoffer, M. Ziese, B. Rudolf
Global Precipitation Climatology Centre, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach, Germany
in Theoretical and Applied Climatology, DOI: 10.1007/s00704-013-0860-x

"A description of the global land-surface precipitation data products of the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre with sample applications including centennial (trend) analysis from 1901-present"
A. Becker, P. Finger, A. Meyer-Christoffer, B. Rudolf, K. Schamm, U. Schneider, and M. Ziese
Global Precipitation Climatology Centre, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach, Germany
in Earth System Science Data, DOI: 10.5194/essd-5-71-2013

"The GPCC Drought Index - a new, combined and gridded global drought index"
M. Ziese (1), U. Schneider (1), A. Meyer-Christoffer (1), K. Schamm (1), J. Vido (1,*), P. Finger (1), P. Bissoli (2), S.Pietsch (3), A. Becker(1)
(1) Deutscher Wetterdienst, Global Precipitation Climatology Centre, 63067 Offenbach/M., Germany
(2) Deutscher Wetterdienst, Regionale Klimaüberwachung, 63067 Offenbach/M., Germany
(3) Deutscher Wetterdienst, Agrarmeteorologische Beratung, 63067 Offenbach/M., Germany
(*) now at: Technical University Zvolen, Department of Natural Environment, 960 53 Zvolen, Slovakia
in Earth System Science Data, DOI: 10.5194/essd-6-285-2014
General user recommendations
Users are referred to following gridded Global Precipitation Climate Centre (GPCC) products:

GPCC Climatology 1951-2000 (GPCC_Clim) with high representativeness, for application as a reference, and for utilization of the anomaly interpolation method.

GPCC Full Data Reanalysis (GPCC_FD) with high accuracy, for, e.g., verification of models, or for analysis of historic global precipitation, or for research concerning the global water cycle, e.g., trend and teleconnection analyses.

GPCC Full Data Daily Product (GPCC_FD_D) is recommended to be used when the daily precipitation information is of highest importance, e.g. for analyses of extreme events and related statistics at daily resolution.

GPCC Monitoring Product (GPCC_MP) with high availability and reasonable timeliness, for applications like calibration of satellite data, or early annual reporting.

GPCC First Guess Product (GPCC_FG) with high timeliness, to be applied for, e.g., drought monitoring.

GPCC First Guess Daily Product (GPCC_FG_D) with high timeliness, to be applied for, e.g., drought monitoring.

GPCC Drought Index Product (GPCC_DI_M) with high timeliness, to be applied for, e.g., drought monitoring.
Temporal Coverage
1952/01 - 2013/12
Spatial Coverage
Latitude: -90.0 to 90.0; Longitude: -180.0 to 180.0
Data Format
gzip compressed NetCDF (classic)
wikipedia.org
(1 file per aggregation period)
Tools
List of Software for Manipulating or Displaying NetCDF Data show list
Panoply netCDF, HDF and GRIB Data Viewer Panoply Home
Climate Data Operators CDO CDO Home
NOAA's Weather and Climate Toolkit WCT Home
Metadata ISO 19115:2003/19139:2007
Climate Data Center CDC XML PDF
Datasize
~ 28.5 MByte per gzip file
Contact
Dr. Andreas Becker, Head
Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC)
c/o Deutscher Wetterdienst
Postfach 10 04 65
D-63004 Offenbach/Main
GERMANY
e-mail: gpcc@dwd.de

Tel.: + 49 (0)69 / 8062-2900
Fax: + 49 (0)69 / 8062-3987
Supplementary infos
Product Info
Terms of Use
GPCC Drought Index 1.0 ° (.zip)
(ftp archive) download


Imprint © DWD 1996-present