The Earth Observations Group (EOG) is producing a version 1 suite of average radiance composite images using nighttime data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB). Prior to averaging, the DNB data is filtered to exclude data impacted by stray light, lightning, lunar illumination, and cloud-cover. Cloud-cover is determined using the VIIRS Cloud Mask product (VCM). In addition, data near the edges of the swath are not included in the composites (aggregation zones 29-32). Temporal averaging is done on a monthly and annual basis. The version 1 series of monthly composites has not been filtered to screen out lights from aurora, fires, boats, and other temporal lights. However, the annual composites have layers with additional separation, removing temporal lights and background (non-light) values. The version 1 products span the globe from 75N latitude to 65S. The products are produced in 15 arc-second geographic grids and are made available in geotiff format as a set of 6 tiles. The tiles are cut at the equator and each span 120 degrees of latitude. Each tile is actually a set of images containing average radiance values and numbers of available observations. In the monthly composites, there are many areas of the globe where it is impossible to get good quality data coverage for that month. This can be due to cloud-cover, especially in the tropical regions, or due to solar illumination, as happens toward the poles in their respective summer months. Therefore, it is imperative that users of these data utilize the cloud-free observations file and not assume a value of zero in the average radiance image means that no lights were observed. The version 1 monthly series is run globally using two different configurations. The first excludes any data impacted by stray light. The second includes these data if the radiance vales have undergone the stray-light correction procedure (Reference). These two configurations are denoted in the filenames as "vcm" and "vcmsl" respectively. The "vcmsl" version, that includes the stray-light corrected data, will have more data coverage toward the poles, but will be of reduced quality. It is up to the users to determine which set is best for their applications. The annual versions are only made with the “vcm” version, excluding any data impacted by stray light. Filenaming convention: The version 1 composite products have 7 filename fields that are separated by an underscore "_". Internal to each field there can be an additional dash separator "-". These fields are followed by a filename extension. The fields are described below using this example filename: SVDNB_npp_20140501-20140531_global_vcmcfg_v10_c201502061154.avg_rade9 Field 1: VIIRS SDR or Product that made the composite "SVDNB" Field 2: satellite name "npp" Field 3: date range "20140501-20140531" Field 4: ROI "global" Field 5: config shortname "vcmcfg" Field 6: version "v10" is version 1.0 Field 7: creation date/time Extension: avg_rade9 The annual products can have other values for the config shortname (Field 5). They are: "vcm-orm" (VIIRS Cloud Mask - Outlier Removed) This product contains cloud-free average radiance values that have undergone an outlier removal process to filter out fires and other ephemeral lights. "vcm-orm-ntl" (VIIRS Cloud Mask - Outlier Removed - Nighttime Lights) This product contains the "vcm-orm" average, with background (non-lights) set to zero. "vcm-ntl" (VIIRS Cloud Mask - Nighttime Lights) This product contains the "vcm" average, with background (non-lights) set to zero. Data types/formats: To reach the widest community of users, files are delivered in compressed tarballs, each containing a set of 2 geotiffs. Files with extensions "avg_rade9" contain floating point radiance values with units in nanoWatts/cm2/sr. Note that the original DNB radiance values have been multiplied by 1E9. This was done to alleviate issues some software packages were having with the very small numbers in the original units. Files with extension "cf_cvg" are integer counts of the number of cloud-free coverages, or observations, that went in to constructing the average radiance image. Files with extension “cvg” are integer counts of the number of coverages or total observations available (regardless of cloud-cover). Credit: When using the data please credit the product generation to the Earth Observation Group, Payne Institute for Public Policy.

This global accessibility map enumerates land-based travel time to the nearest densely-populated area for all areas between 85 degrees north and 60 degrees south for a nominal year 2015. Densely-populated areas are defined as contiguous areas with 1,500 or more inhabitants per square kilometer or a majority of built-up land cover types coincident with a population centre of at least 50,000 inhabitants. This map was produced through a collaboration between the University of Oxford Malaria Atlas Project (MAP), Google, the European Union Joint Research Centre (JRC), and the University of Twente, Netherlands. The underlying datasets used to produce the map, include roads (comprising the first ever global-scale use of Open Street Map and Google roads datasets), railways, rivers, lakes, oceans, topographic conditions (slope and elevation), landcover types, and national borders. These datasets were each allocated a speed or speeds of travel in terms of time to cross each pixel of that type. The datasets were then combined to produce a “friction surface”, a map where every pixel is allocated a nominal overall speed of travel based on the types occurring within that pixel. Least-cost-path algorithms (running in Google Earth Engine and, for high-latitude areas, in R) were used in conjunction with this friction surface to calculate the time of travel from all locations to the nearest city (by travel time). Cities were determined using the high-density-cover product created by the Global Human Settlement Project. Each pixel in the resultant accessibility map thus represents the modeled shortest time from that location to a city. Full Citation D.J. Weiss, A. Nelson, H.S. Gibson, W. Temperley, S. Peedell, A. Lieber, M. Hancher, E. Poyart, S. Belchior, N. Fullman, B. Mappin, U. Dalrymple, J. Rozier, T.C.D. Lucas, R.E. Howes, L.S. Tusting, S.Y. Kang, E. Cameron, D. Bisanzio, K.E. Battle, S. Bhatt, and P.W. Gething. A global map of travel time to cities to assess inequalities in accessibility in 2015. (2018). Nature. doi:10.1038/nature25181.

Overview: The Essential Climate Variables for assessment of climate variability from 1979 to present dataset contains a selection of climatologies, monthly anomalies and monthly mean fields of Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) suitable for monitoring and assessment of climate variability and change. Selection criteria are based on accuracy and temporal consistency on monthly to decadal time scales. The ECV data products in this set have been estimated from climate reanalyses ERA-Interim and ERA5, and, depending on the source, may have been adjusted to account for biases and other known deficiencies. Data sources and adjustment methods used are described in the Product User Guide, as are various particulars such as the baseline periods used to calculate monthly climatologies and the corresponding anomalies. Surface air relative humidity: The ratio of the partial pressure of water vapour to the equilibrium vapour pressure of water at the same temperature near the surface. Spatial resolution: 0:15:00 (0.25°) Temporal resolution: monthly Temporal extent: 1979 - present Data unit: percent * 10 Data type: UInt8 CRS as EPSG: EPSG:4326 Processing time delay: one month

This data set contains the administrative boundaries at country level of the world and is based on the geometry from EBM v12.x. of EuroGeographics for the members of Eurogeographics, the Global Administrative Units Layer (2015) from FAO (UN) and geometry from the Turkish National Statistical Office. This dataset consists of 2 feature classes (regions, boundaries) per scale level and there are 6 different scale levels (100K, 1M, 3M, 10M, 20M and 60M). The public data set (1M - 60M) is available under the Download link indicated below. The full data set (100K - 60M) GISCO.CNTR_2016 is available via the EC restricted download link.

This data set contains the administrative boundaries at country level of the world and is based on the geometry from EBM v2020 (ReferenceDate 31.12.2018) of EuroGeographics for the members of Eurogeographics, and GISCO Countries 2020. This dataset consists of 2 feature classes (regions, boundaries) per scale level and there are 6 different scale levels (100K, 1M,3M, 10M, 20M and 60M). The public data set (1M - 60M) is available under the Download link indicated below. The full data set (100K - 60M) GISCO.CNTR_2020 is available via the EC restricted download link.

The Copernicus DEM is a Digital Surface Model (DSM) which represents the surface of the Earth including buildings, infrastructure and vegetation. We provide two instances of Copernicus DEM named GLO-30 Public and GLO-90. GLO-90 provides worldwide coverage at 90 meters. GLO-30 Public provides limited worldwide coverage at 30 meters because a small subset of tiles covering specific countries are not yet released to the public by the Copernicus Programme. Note that in both cases ocean areas do not have tiles, there one can assume height values equal to zero. Data is provided as Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs. Two releases (i.e. 2019 and 2020) are currently available for all Copernicus DEM instances with the exception of COP-DEM_GLO-30-DTED_PUBLIC and COP-DEM_GLO-30-DGED_PUBLIC, only available as 2019 release. A full collection of tiles per each release can be found via FTP and PANDA Catalogue under dataset names marked with “2019_1” and “2020_1”. The 2020 release has undergone the following improvements with respect to the 2019 release: - infilling with high resolution DEM over Norway; - addition of 5 geocells containing missing small islands; - editing of source raw data; - correction of minor data/auxiliary files inconsistencies; - correction of implausible values. The products impacted by improvements can be identified via a dedicated list: https://spacedata.copernicus.eu/documents/20126/0/COP-DEM_delivery_sheet_v0.7_PUBLIC+%282%29.xlsx/771ce82f-0084-849d-8a34-702c421eacf2?t=1611651454540

Base epoch 2015 from the Collection 3 of annual, global 100m land cover maps. Other available (consolidated) epochs: 2016 2017 2018 2019 Produced by the global component of the Copernicus Land Service, derived from PROBA-V satellite observations and ancillary datasets. The maps include: - a main discrete classification with 23 classes aligned with UN-FAO's Land Cover Classification System, - a set of versatile cover fractions: percentage (%) of ground cover for the 10 main classes - - a forest type layer quality layers on input data density Online map viewer: https://lcviewer.vito.be

The Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) is responsible for the archive and distribution of NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) version 1 (NASADEM_SC) dataset, which provides global slope and curvature elevation data at 1 arc second spacing. NASADEM data products were derived from original telemetry data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), a collaboration between NASA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), as well as participation from the German and Italian space agencies. SRTM’s primary focus was to generate a near-global DEM of the Earth using radar interferometry. It was a primary component of the payload on space shuttle Endeavour during its STS-99 mission, which was launched on February 11, 2000, and flew for 11 days. In addition to Terra Advanced Spaceborne Thermal and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) Version 3 data, NASADEM also relied on Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) ground control points of its lidar shots to improve surface elevation measurements that led to improved geolocation accuracy. Other reprocessing improvements include the conversion to geoid reference and the use of GDEMs and Advanced Land Observing Satellite Panchromatic Remote-sensing instrument for Stereo Mapping (PRISM) AW3D30 DEM, and interpolation for void filling. NASADEM are distributed in 1° by 1° tiles and consist of all land between 60° N and 56° S latitude. This accounts for about 80% of Earth’s total landmass. NASADEM_SC data product layers include slope, aspect angle, profile curvature, plan curvature, and an updated SRTM water body dataset (water mask). A low-resolution browse image showing slope is also available for each NASADEM_SC granule.

Overview: The Essential Climate Variables for assessment of climate variability from 1979 to present dataset contains a selection of climatologies, monthly anomalies and monthly mean fields of Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) suitable for monitoring and assessment of climate variability and change. Selection criteria are based on accuracy and temporal consistency on monthly to decadal time scales. The ECV data products in this set have been estimated from climate reanalyses ERA-Interim and ERA5, and, depending on the source, may have been adjusted to account for biases and other known deficiencies. Data sources and adjustment methods used are described in the Product User Guide, as are various particulars such as the baseline periods used to calculate monthly climatologies and the corresponding anomalies. Sum of monthly precipitation: This variable is the accumulated liquid and frozen water, including rain and snow, that falls to the Earth's surface. It is the sum of large-scale precipitation (that precipitation which is generated by large-scale weather patterns, such as troughs and cold fronts) and convective precipitation (generated by convection which occurs when air at lower levels in the atmosphere is warmer and less dense than the air above, so it rises). Precipitation variables do not include fog, dew or the precipitation that evaporates in the atmosphere before it lands at the surface of the Earth. Spatial resolution: 0:15:00 (0.25°) Temporal resolution: monthly Temporal extent: 1979 - present Data unit: mm * 10 Data type: UInt32 CRS as EPSG: EPSG:4326 Processing time delay: one month

Overview: The Essential Climate Variables for assessment of climate variability from 1979 to present dataset contains a selection of climatologies, monthly anomalies and monthly mean fields of Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) suitable for monitoring and assessment of climate variability and change. Selection criteria are based on accuracy and temporal consistency on monthly to decadal time scales. The ECV data products in this set have been estimated from climate reanalyses ERA-Interim and ERA5, and, depending on the source, may have been adjusted to account for biases and other known deficiencies. Data sources and adjustment methods used are described in the Product User Guide, as are various particulars such as the baseline periods used to calculate monthly climatologies and the corresponding anomalies. Surface air temperature: This variable is the temperature of air at 2m above the surface of land, sea or in-land waters. 2m temperature is calculated by interpolating between the lowest model level and the Earth's surface, taking account of the atmospheric conditions. Spatial resolution: 0:15:00 (0.25°) Temporal resolution: monthly Temporal extent: 1979 - present Data unit: °C * 10 Data type: Int16 CRS as EPSG: EPSG:4326 Processing time delay: one month