APHRODITE¶

Asian Precipitation – Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of Water Resources

Discontinued

At a glance¶

Note on period: V1101 (Monsoon Asia, Middle East, Russia) covers 1951-01-01 to 2007-12-31; V1101EX_R1, an extension with the same algorithm, covers 2007–2015 (2007 overlaps); the new-algorithm V1801_R1 and the EOD-adjusted (00–24 UTC) V1901 cover 1998–2015. The temperature product AphroTemp V1204R1 covers 1961–2007; the later temperature product V1808 (APHRO_TAVE_MA_V1808) covers 1961–2015 according to the NCAR Climate Data Guide (not confirmed in an official README). As checked on 2026-10-12, the last date with data is 2015-12-31.

Overview¶

APHRODITE is a set of gauge-based daily gridded precipitation datasets for Asia. It is built primarily from rain-gauge data collected directly from meteorological and hydrological agencies and researchers across Asia, supplemented by GTS, GHCN and other public data, and interpolated with topography taken into account. It covers Monsoon Asia, the Middle East and Russia at 0.25° and 0.5° from 1951, and is distinguished by including more gauges than other global products in data-sparse regions such as the Himalayas. Each grid cell comes with the ratio of 0.05° boxes containing stations (RSTN), which indicates how reliable the value is. A daily mean temperature dataset (AphroTemp, V1808) and a 0.05° product for Japan (APHRO_JP) are also available.

Available variables¶

Variables as described in the official READMEs. In the binary files, each daily field holds the precipitation array followed by the station-ratio array (4-byte floats, little-endian, no record markers); netCDF files are also provided. The netCDF variable names are not given in the READMEs, so check them by opening a file. The missing value is -99.9.

instantaneous mean accumulated maximum minimum static — instantaneous: value at the time stamp · mean/accumulated/maximum/minimum: over the indicated interval · static: does not change with time

Daily precipitation (APHRO_MA/ME/RU V1101, V1101EX_R1, V1801_R1, V1901)¶

Daily mean temperature (AphroTemp V1204R1, APHRO_TAVE_MA_V1808)¶

Japan high resolution (APHRO_JP)¶

The full variable list is in the official documentation.

How to get the data¶

• APHRODITE website (Hirosaki University, latest versions) — Web download (email registration)
  • Provides V1901, V1801_R1, V1101EX_R1, V1808 (temperature), APHRO_JP and the APHRODITE-1 products (V1101 etc.). For older versions, the site asks you to write to aphrodite.precinfo@gmail.com. Binary files come with GrADS control files (.ctl), Fortran sample code and netCDF versions.
• DIAS — APHRO_MA V1101 (Monsoon Asia) — Web download (DIAS email registration)
  • The V1101 edition for 1951–2007. As checked on 2026-10-12, the AphroTemp (temperature V1204R1) page on the same DIAS site says download is currently unavailable.

Example code¶

Reads one yearly Monsoon Asia 0.5° file using the binary layout given in the README (per day: [precipitation, RSTN] arrays, 4-byte little-endian floats, no record markers). Adjust the file name and the grid origin and orientation from the accompanying .ctl file (XDEF, YDEF).

import numpy as np

nx, ny = 180, 140                      # Monsoon Asia 0.5° (0.25°: 360, 280)
fname = "APHRO_MA_050deg_V1101.2005"   # replace with the file you downloaded

raw = np.fromfile(fname, dtype="<f4")
nday = raw.size // (2 * nx * ny)       # 0.5° non-leap-year file = 73,584,000 bytes = 365 days
raw = raw.reshape(nday, 2, ny, nx)

precip = np.where(raw[:, 0] <= -99.0, np.nan, raw[:, 0])   # mm/day
rstn = np.where(raw[:, 1] <= -99.0, np.nan, raw[:, 1])     # ratio of boxes containing stations

# Cells with no station (rstn == 0) are purely interpolated, so flag them separately
print(nday, np.nanmean(precip), np.mean(rstn == 0))

Practical tips¶

• Day boundaries differ between versions. For extreme precipitation and date-specific case studies, V1901 (aligned to 00–24 UTC) is the right choice; do not compare V1101 and V1901 values for the same date directly.
• Always look at RSTN (ratio of boxes containing stations). Cells without a station are interpolated from surrounding gauges, so reliability varies strongly by region and period. The NCAR Climate Data Guide also notes that changes in the number of input gauges over space and time limit trend analysis.
• The record is not homogenized for station relocations or gauge changes. It is better suited to climatologies and case studies than to long-term trends.
• The Korean Peninsula lies within the Monsoon Asia (MA) domain (60–150°E, 15°S–55°N). However, the source and number of Korean gauges could not be confirmed in official documents, so for Korean studies check the gauge density per cell with RSTN and compare against KMA ASOS observations. APHRO_JP covers land areas of Japan.
• The 0.05° station grids are mostly not released because of data-provider restrictions (exceptions: APHRO_JP for Japan and the V1901 climatology).
• V1101 binary files are direct-access files without record markers, so Fortran sequential reads or generic numpy reads must use the right record length and byte order. Check the number of days against the file size.
• Commercial use and redistribution are prohibited. Publishing processed data requires permission from the APHRODITE team.

Notices and change history¶

References for your paper¶

Dataset citation¶

APHRODITE data citation (no dataset DOI — give the version number and the website)

@misc{aphrodite_v1901,
  author       = {{APHRODITE Project}},
  title        = {{APHRODITE} Monsoon Asia daily precipitation, {APHRO\_MA} {V1901} (end-of-the-day adjusted version)},
  howpublished = {\url{http://aphrodite.st.hirosaki-u.ac.jp/}},
  institution  = {Hirosaki University},
  note         = {Accessed DD Month YYYY}
}

Reference papers¶

APHRODITE reference paper (based on V1101; requested for all versions) — DOI 10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00122.1

@article{yatagai2012aphrodite,
  author  = {Yatagai, Akiyo and Kamiguchi, Kenji and Arakawa, Osamu and Hamada, Atsushi and Yasutomi, Natsuko and Kitoh, Akio},
  title   = {{APHRODITE}: Constructing a Long-Term Daily Gridded Precipitation Dataset for {Asia} Based on a Dense Network of Rain Gauges},
  journal = {Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society},
  volume  = {93},
  number  = {9},
  pages   = {1401--1415},
  year    = {2012},
  doi     = {10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00122.1}
}

End-of-the-day (EOD) judgment and adjustment — for V1801R1 and V1901 — DOI 10.3390/atmos11080772

@article{yatagai2020eod,
  author  = {Yatagai, Akiyo and Maeda, Mio and Khadgarai, Sunilkumar and Masuda, Minami and Xie, Pingping},
  title   = {End of the Day ({EOD}) Judgment for Daily Rain-Gauge Data},
  journal = {Atmosphere},
  volume  = {11},
  number  = {8},
  pages   = {772},
  year    = {2020},
  doi     = {10.3390/atmos11080772}
}

Japan high-resolution product APHRO_JP — DOI 10.3178/hrl.4.60

@article{kamiguchi2010aphrojp,
  author  = {Kamiguchi, Kenji and Arakawa, Osamu and Kitoh, Akio and Yatagai, Akiyo and Hamada, Atsushi and Yasutomi, Natsuko},
  title   = {Development of {APHRO\_JP}, the first {Japanese} high-resolution daily precipitation product for more than 100 years},
  journal = {Hydrological Research Letters},
  volume  = {4},
  pages   = {60--64},
  year    = {2010},
  doi     = {10.3178/hrl.4.60}
}

Daily mean temperature AphroTemp (no DOI)

@article{yasutomi2011aphrotemp,
  author  = {Yasutomi, Natsuko and Hamada, Atsushi and Yatagai, Akiyo},
  title   = {Development of a long-term daily gridded temperature dataset and its application to rain/snow discrimination of daily precipitation},
  journal = {Global Environmental Research},
  volume  = {15},
  number  = {2},
  pages   = {165--172},
  year    = {2011}
}

Acknowledgements¶

The READMEs ask users to specify the version number and cite Yatagai et al. (2012). For V1901, write e.g. "End-of-the-day adjusted version of APHRODITE (V1901, Yatagai et al. 2012)"; for V1101EX_R1, state that it is an update of V1101 and give the web page. For the quality-control method, cite Hamada et al. (2011, Global Environmental Research 15(2), 183–192).

Information on the datasets used in this study was compiled with the help of the Korean Climate Data Navigator (KCDN) (Sim, 2026; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23300923).

Links¶

• APHRODITE website (Hirosaki University)
• APHRODITE products
• V1901 README (PDF)
• V1101EX_R1 README
• APHRODITE-1 website (RIHN, earlier versions)
• DIAS — APHRO_MA V1101
• NCAR Climate Data Guide — APHRODITE