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- If you request the data in the native GRIB format it is delivered with the above grid geometry.
- If you request the data in NetCDF format, it is automatically converted and interpolated from the above grids to a regular lat/lon grid.
Grid resolution
The ERA5 HRES (High Resolution) data has a native resolution of 0.28125 degrees (31km), and the EDA (Ensemble) has a resolution of 0.5625 degrees (62km).
The wave HRES (High Resolution) data has a native resolution of 0.36 degrees, and the wave EDA (ensemble) has a resolution of 1.0 degrees (EDA).
Projection
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Coordinate
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Coordinate system
All gridded data is made available in Decimal Degrees, lat/lon, with latitude values in the range [-90;+90] referenced to the equator and longitude values in the range [0;360] referenced to the Greenwich Prime Meridian. Some software applications automatically display these longitudes in the range [-180;+180].
Spatial reference systems
The ECMWF model assumes the Earth is a perfect sphere, but the geodetic latitude/longitude of the surface elevation datasets are used as if they were the spherical latitude/longitude of the ECMWF model.
ECMWF data is referenced in the horizontal with respect to the WGS84 ellipse (which defines the major/minor axes) but in the vertical it is referenced to the Geoid (EGM96).
Earth model
For data in GRIB1 format the earth model is a sphere with radius = 6367.47 km, as defined in the WMO GRIB Edition 1 specifications, Table 7, GDS Octet 17
For data in GRIB2 format the earth model is a sphere with radius = 6371.2290 km, as defined in the WMO GRIB2 specifications, section 2.2.1, Code Table 3.2, Code figure 6.
For data in NetCDF format (i.e. converted from the native GRIB format to NetCDF), the earth model is inherited from the GRIB data.
Interpolation
When you download ERA5 data you have the option to interpolate the data to a custom grid and horizontal resolution (eg. 'grid':'0.5/0.5'). The default interpolation method is bilinear for continuous parameters (e.g. Temperature) and nearest neighbour for discrete parameters (eg. Vegetation).
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