ERA5-Land monthly data

Name: ERA5-Land monthly data - Earth Data Hub
Creator: ECMWF

This dataset is a Zarr mirror of ECMWF’s ERA5-Land monthly averaged data from 1950 to present.

It is designed to offer a fast, highly accessible alternative for querying ERA5-Land's monthly averaged data.

The dataset employs a spatio-temporal chunking scheme of 10 years × 20° latitude × 20° longitude. This corresponds to an array chunk shape of 120 (valid_time) × 200 (latitude) × 200 (longitude).

⚠️ Data quality issue: 06/10/2026 - 23/10/2026 (fixed)

We found a data quality problem in 34 variables of the ERA5-Land monthly dataset. From January 1950 to December 2019, these variables didn’t contain the correct monthly values. The same field was repeated across time steps. Data from January 2020 onwards was correct.

To keep anyone from using incorrect data, we temporarly removed these variables from the Earth Data Hub and published the fixed version on the 23/10/2026:

Fixed variables: e, es, evabs, evaow, evatc, evavt, lai_hv, lai_lv, lblt, licd, lict, lmld, lmlt, lshf, ltlt, pev, ro, rsn, sde, sf, slhf, smlt, snowc, sp, sro, ssr, ssrd, ssro, sshf, str, strd, tp, u10, v10.

All other ERA5-Land monthly variables where not affected by this issue.

What you should do: if you used any of these variables between 06/10/2026 - 23/10/2026 please check your results or re-run your analysis. For questions, contact earthdatahub@bopen.eu.

We apologise for the inconvenience.

How to download the data

This Python snippet includes the token directly in the URL.

1import xarray as xr
2
3xr.open_dataset(
4    "https://edh:<your API key>@data.earthdatahub.destine.eu/era5/era5-land-monthly-v0.zarr",
5    chunks={},
6    engine="zarr",
7)

Variables

Short Name	Units	Description
asn	(0 - 1)	Snow albedo
cl	(0 - 1)	Lake cover
cvh	(0 - 1)	High vegetation cover
cvl	(0 - 1)	Low vegetation cover
d2m	K	2 metre dewpoint temperature
dl	m	Lake total depth
e	m of water equivalent	Evaporation
es	m of water equivalent	Snow evaporation
evabs	m of water equivalent	Evaporation from bare soil
evaow	m of water equivalent	Evaporation from open water surfaces excluding oceans
evatc	m of water equivalent	Evaporation from the top of canopy
evavt	m of water equivalent	Evaporation from vegetation transpiration
fal	(0 - 1)	Forecast albedo
glm	Proportion	Glacier mask
lai_hv	m² m^-2	Leaf area index, high vegetation
lai_lv	m² m^-2	Leaf area index, low vegetation
lblt	K	Lake bottom temperature
licd	m	Lake ice total depth
lict	K	Lake ice surface temperature
lmld	m	Lake mix-layer depth
lmlt	K	Lake mix-layer temperature
lshf	dimensionless	Lake shape factor
lsm	(0 - 1)	Land-sea mask
ltlt	K	Lake total layer temperature
pev	m	Potential evaporation
ro	m	Runoff
rsn	kg m^-3	Snow density
sd	m of water equivalent	Snow depth
sde	m	Snow depth
sf	m of water equivalent	Snowfall
skt	K	Skin temperature
slhf	J m^-2	Time-integrated surface latent heat net flux
slt	(Code table 4.213)	Soil type
smlt	m of water equivalent	Snowmelt
snowc	%	Snow cover
sp	Pa	Surface pressure
src	m of water equivalent	Skin reservoir content
sro	m	Surface runoff
sshf	J m^-2	Time-integrated surface sensible heat net flux
ssr	J m^-2	Surface net short-wave (solar) radiation
ssrd	J m^-2	Surface short-wave (solar) radiation downwards
ssro	m	Sub-surface runoff
stl1	K	Soil temperature level 1
stl2	K	Soil temperature level 2
stl3	K	Soil temperature level 3
stl4	K	Soil temperature level 4
str	J m^-2	Surface net long-wave (thermal) radiation
strd	J m^-2	Surface long-wave (thermal) radiation downwards
swvl1	m³ m^-3	Volumetric soil water layer 1
swvl2	m³ m^-3	Volumetric soil water layer 2
swvl3	m³ m^-3	Volumetric soil water layer 3
swvl4	m³ m^-3	Volumetric soil water layer 4
t2m	K	2 metre temperature
tp	m	Total precipitation
tsn	K	Temperature of snow layer
tvh	(Code table 4.234)	Type of high vegetation
tvl	(Code table 4.234)	Type of low vegetation
u10	m s^-1	10 metre U wind component
v10	m s^-1	10 metre V wind component
z	m² s^-2	Geopotential