JISAO data
Elevation data in netCDF
Global domain.
1-degree latitude-longitude resolution elevations, light shading for elevations < -5000m, and increasingly darker shades for elevations > 0 and 1500m. This choice of shading captures the deeper parts of the world oceans, the Himalayas, Rockies, and the Andies, and shows that much of Antarctica is a high plateau. The elevation data set used for this figure is linked here (in netCDF).

The best WWW page of elevation data sets that I have found is that of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Many of the data sets on this page were constructed from a 5-minute resolution data set at NCAR called "TerrainBase." There is now a 2-minute version of TerrainBase that you can download.

  • At JISAO, all of these files reside at:
    /home/disk/muggy/data/elevation/
  • 1-degree latitude-longitude resolution elevation
  • fractional land (0-1) at 0.25-degree latitude-longitude resolution.
  • fractional land (0-1) at 0.5-degree latitude-longitude resolution.
  • fractional land (0-1) at 1-degree latitude-longitude resolution.
  • fractional land (0-1) at 2-degree latitude-longitude resolution.
  • fractional land (0-1) at 2.5-degree latitude-longitude resolution.
  • fractional land (0-1) at 5-degree latitude-longitude resolution.
    How to shade continents in GrADS.

    GrADS is free software that employs a command-line interface (you type commands in). The following describes how to draw the figure at the top of this WWW page.

    grads  * To start the session

* Define some gray shades
set rgb 16 153 153 153
set rgb 18 205 205 205
set rgb 19 230 230 230

sdfopen elev.1-deg.nc 

set background 0    
set mpdraw off      
set grid off
set grads off

set dfile 1
set gxout shaded    
set clevs -1500 0 1500
set ccols 19 0 18 16
d data
    July 2008
    Todd Mitchell (mitchell@atmos.washington.edu)
    JISAO data