The Second Global Soil Wetness Project (GSWP-2) encompasses the same core 10-year period as the International Satellite Land-Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Initiative II (1986-1995). Based on 3-hourly NCEP-DOE (National Center for Atmospheric Research ¨CDepartment of Energy) reanalyzes, we have also produced hybrid data sets for several of the near-surface meteorology fields using global observational data for GSWP modeling sensitivity studies. Hybridization allows us to remove systematic errors in the reanalysis fields. We will describe the methods of data hybridization as well as compare the different data sets. Results may give GSWP modelers and other users general information about the strengths and weaknesses for each data set, thereby helping the modelers to analyze and explain their results.