GPCC Monitoring Product

You can download the monthly precipitation (monitoring) product,, the number of stations/gauges per grid used for this product,
the proportion of solid/liquid precipitation per grid and the monthly systematic gauge measuring error (new since 2007).
Data are stored in zip-arcives, one year per arcive. The latest year may be incomplete.

Format of each File:

row #1 number of rows to seek/skip over;

row #2 gridsize ° (1.0 or 2.5)

row #3 area °

row #4 month and year

row #5 separator =======

row #6 data description of column 1, gpcc analysis, monitorig product

row #7 data description of column 2, number of gauges per grid

row #8 separator =======

row #9 to End-Of-File 2 columns of data (representing the value of a gridbox (center) with size GG * GG) Format F9.2,1x,F9.2

Example of 2.5 ° data for Jan 1997

8          : rows to seek over
Grid    : 2.500000
Area    : -180.000000 180.000000 -90.000000 90.000000
Month : 01 1997
===================
column 1          : GAUGE ANALYSIS SPHEREMAP-V003 (monitoring product)
column 2          : GAUGE ANALYSIS SPHEREMAP-V003 (number of gauges per grid)
===================
-99999.99      0.00
-99999.99      0.00
-99999.99      0.00
-99999.99      0.00
:
:
:

New Format since January 2007

row #1 number of rows to skip over;

row #2 to #3 product name and version

row #4 separator =======

row #5 gridsize ° (1.0 or 2.5)

row #6 area °

row #7 month and year

row #8 separator =======

row #9 to #15 product names per column

row #16 separator =======

row #17 to #22 Information

row #23 separator =======

row #24 to End-Of-File 7 columns of data (representing the value of a gridbox (center) with size GG * GG) Format 7(F9.2,1x)

Example of 2.5 ° data for Jan 2007 (new format)

23 : rows to skip
GPCC Monitoring Product
(GAUGE ANALYSIS SPHEREMAP-V004)
=====================================================
Grid    : 2.5 degree
Area    : LON -180.00 to 180.00 LAT 90.00 to -90.00
Month: 01 2007
=====================================================
column 1    : precipitation totals in mm/month
column 2    : number of gauges per grid
column 3    : proportion of solid precip in %
column 4    : proportion of liquid precip in %
column 5    : absolute systematic gauge error in mm/month
column 6    : relative systematic gauge error in %
column 7    : systematic gauge error correction factor (multiplier 1 - 3)
=====================================================
if precipitation totals >= 1.0 mm/month:
relativ systematic gauge error is limited to 200 %
systematic gauge error correction factor is limited to 3
if precipitation totals < 1.0 mm/month:
relativ systematic gauge error is set to 0 %
systematic gauge error correction factor is set to 1
=====================================================
-99999.99   0.00   -99999.99   -99999.99   -99999.99   -99999.99   -99999.99
-99999.99   0.00   -99999.99   -99999.99   -99999.99   -99999.99   -99999.99
-99999.99   ...
:
:
:

Relation of rows and gridcells:

Example for 2.5 ° grids

144 * 72 = 10368 gridcells, row #1(+8 / +23 since 2007) to #10368(+8 / +23 since 2007)

row gridcell centre coordinates

#9 1 -178,75°W / +88,75°N

#152 144 +178,75°E / +88,75°N

#10233 10225 -178,75°W / -88,75°S

#10376 10368 +178,75°E / -88,75°S

The following table shows the global gridsystem

-180/+90 (West/North) +180/+90 (East/North)

1 2 3 4 ... 144

145 146 147 148 ... 288

: : : : : :

10225 10226 10227 10228 ... 10368

-180/-90 (West/South) +180/-90 (East/South)

1.0 ° Grid is similar to the system as shown above, but:

360 * 180 = 64800 gridcells, row 1(+8) to 64800(+8)

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