Evapotranspiration (ET) is the water lost to the atmosphere by evaporation and transpiration. ET is a shared component in the energy and water budget, therefore, a critical variable for global energy and water cycle and climate change studies. However, direct ET measurements and data acquisition are difficult and expensive, especially at the global level, so modeling is one common alternative for estimating ET. With the goal to generate optimal fields of land surface states and fluxes, the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) has been generating quality-controlled, spatially and temporally consistent, terrestrial hydrologic data, including ET and other variables that affect evaporation and transpiration, such as temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind, soil moisture, heat flux, and solar radiation. To date, more than 30 years (Jan. 1979 – present) GLDAS Version 1 (GLDAS-1) data, simulated by CLM, Mosaic, NOAH, and VIC models, have been generated. With the motivation to create more climatologically consistent data sets, more than 60 years (Jan. 1948 – present) GLDAS Version 2 (GLDAS-2) data have been generated, by using the Princeton meteorological dataset (Sheffield et al, 2006) and upgraded versions of Land Surface Models (LSMs). This poster presents ET long term mean and monthly climatology of 61-year GLDAS-2 monthly 1.0ox1.0o NOAH model Experiment-1 data and describes the basic characteristics of spatial and seasonal variations. The time series of GLDAS-2 meteorological and radiation fields will also be discussed to show the improvement of GLDAS-2 forcing data. With the extended temporal coverage and climatologically consistent data, the GLDAS-2 ET data are expected to play an important role in global hydrology and climate studies.

All GLDAS-1 and GLDAS-2 data are accessible from NASA GES DISC Hydrology Data Holdings, http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/hydrology/data-holdings. To better facilitate access and use of these data, NASA Giovanni portals, http://gdata1.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/daac-bin/G3/gui.cgi?instance_id=GLDAS10_M and http://gdata1.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/daac-bin/G3/gui.cgi?instance_id=GLDAS10_3H, provide a simple and intuitive way for GLDAS online visualization, analysis, and inter-comparison.