H
Human Development Index (HDI)
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and having a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions. The health dimension is assessed by life expectancy at birth, the education dimension is measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and more and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age. The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita. The HDI uses the logarithm of income, to reflect the diminishing importance of income with increasing GNI. The scores for the three HDI dimension indices are then aggregated into a composite index using geometric mean. The HDI can be used to question national policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of GNI per capita can end up with different human development outcomes. These contrasts can stimulate debate about government policy priorities.
Read More
L
Landslide
The downslope movement of rock, soil, or debris under the influence of gravity. Landslides may be triggered by heavy rainfall, earthquakes, erosion, or human disturbance and can affect settlements, transport networks, and river systems.
Read More
Lower Bound
The Lower bound represents the 20-percentile of the ensemble of average world temperature over land of the entire ISIMIP3b scenario.
Read More
M
Maximum 1-day precipitation (RX1day)
Maximum 1-day precipitation amount. Units: mm
Read More
Maximum 5-day precipitation (RX5day)
Maximum 5-day precipitation amount. Units: mm
Read More
Maximum of maximum temperatures (TXx)
Maximum of daily maximum temperature.
Units: degree Celsius Read More
Units: degree Celsius Read More
Maximum temperature (TX)
Mean of daily maximum temperature.
Units: degree Celsius Read More
Units: degree Celsius Read More
Mean Temperature (T)
Mean near-surface air temperature.
Units: degree Celsius Read More
Units: degree Celsius Read More
MERIT Hydro - Hydrologically Adjusted Elevations
High-resolution raster hydrography maps are a fundamental data source for many geoscience applications. Here we introduce MERIT Hydro, a new global flow direction map at 3-arc sec resolution (~90 m at the equator) derived from the latest elevation data (MERIT DEM) and water body data sets (G1WBM, Global Surface Water Occurrence, and OpenStreetMap). We developed a new algorithm to extract river networks near automatically by separating actual inland basins from dummy depressions caused by the errors in input elevation data. After a minimum amount of hand editing, the constructed hydrography map shows good agreement with existing quality-controlled river network data sets in terms of flow accumulation area and river basin shape. The location of river streamlines was realistically aligned with existing satellite-based global river channel data. Relative error in the drainage area was <0.05 for 90% of Global Runoff Data Center (GRDC) gauges, confirming the accuracy of the delineated global river networks. Discrepancies in flow accumulation area were found mostly in arid river basins containing depressions that are occasionally connected at high water levels and thus resulting in uncertain watershed boundaries. MERIT Hydro improves on existing global hydrography data sets in terms of spatial coverage (between N90 and S60) and representation of small streams, mainly due to increased availability of high-quality baseline geospatial data sets. The new flow direction and flow accumulation maps, along with accompanying supplementary layers on hydrologically adjusted elevation and channel width, will advance geoscience studies related to river hydrology at both global and local scales.
Read More
Minimum of minimum temperatures (TNn)
Minimum of daily minimum temperature.
Units: degree Celsius Read More
Units: degree Celsius Read More