Palmer Drought Severity Index (PSDI) from LDEO/IRI Climate Data LibraryEntry ID: LDEO_PDSI
Abstract: The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) is devised by
Palmer (1965) to represent the severity of dry and wet spells
over the U.S. based on monthly temperature and precipitation
data as well as the soil-water holding capacity at that
location. These data consist of the monthly PDSI over global
land areas from 1860-1995 derived using monthly surface air
temperature (from Hansen and Lebedeff, 1987 and updates)
and precipitation (from Dai et al., 1997) data. Soil-holding
capacity was fixed to climatological maps from
Webb et al. (1993). More details can be found in
Dai, et al. (1998).
Data Set Citation
Dataset Originator/Creator: Palmer, W.C.
Dataset Title: Meteorological Drought
Dataset Series Name: DOC Res. Paper No.45
Dataset Release Date: 1965
Dataset Release Place: Washington, D.C.
Dataset Publisher: Department of CommerceOnline Resource: http://ingrid.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.NCAR/.CGD/.CAS/.Indices/.P...
Start Date: 1860-12-01Stop Date: 1995-12-31
Latitude Resolution: 2.5 deg
Longitude Resolution: 2.5 deg
Temporal Resolution: monthly
ISO Topic Category
Access Constraints None
Use Constraints None
Data Set Progress
Distribution Media: online WWW
Dai, A., I. Fung, and A. D. Del Genio, 1997: Surface observed
global land precipitation variations during 1900-1988.
J. Climate, 10, 2943-2962.
Dai, A., K. E. Trenberth, and T. Karl, 1998: Global variations in
droughts and wet spells: 1900-1995. Geophys. Res. Lett., 25,
Hansen, J. and S. Lebedeff, 1987: Global trends of measured
surface air temperature. J. Geophys. Res., 92, 13345-37.
Palmer, W. C, 1965: Meteorological Drought. Res. Paper No.45,
58pp., Dept. of Commerce, Washington, D.C.
Webb, R. S., C. E. Rosenzweig, and E. R. Levine, 1993:
Specifying land surface characteristics in general circulation
models: soil profile dataset and derived water-holding
capacities. Global Biogeochem. Cycles,7, 97-108.
Extended Metadata Properties
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Creation and Review Dates
DIF Creation Date: 2000-09-28
Last DIF Revision Date: 2016-10-20