Mexico's High Resolution Climate Database (MexHiResClimDB): a new daily high-resolution gridded climate dataset for Mexico covering 1951–2020

<p>This work presents Mexico's High Resolution Climate Database (MexHiResClimDB), which is a newly developed gridded, high-resolution climate dataset comprised of daily, monthly and yearly precipitation and temperature (<span class="inline-formula"><i>T</i>_min</span>, <span class="inline-formula"><i>T</i>_max</span>, <span class="inline-formula"><i>T</i>_avg</span>). This new database provides the largest temporal coverage of the aforementioned climate variables at the highest spatial resolution (20 arcsec, or 560 m on Mexico's CCL projection) when compared to the other currently available gridded datasets for Mexico and its development has allowed for the analysis of the country's climate extremes for the 1951–2020 period. By comparing the spatial distribution of precipitation from the MexHiResClimDB with other gridded data (Daymet, L15, CHIRPS and PERSIANN CDR), it was found that the precipitation provided by this new dataset adequately represents the spatial variation of extreme precipitation events, in particular for the precipitation that occurred during 15–16 September 2013, caused by the presence of Tropical storm Manuel in the Pacific Ocean and Hurricane Ingrid (Cat 1) in the Gulf of Mexico. Using data from 61 days retrieved from Automated Weather Stations located throughout Mexico – and correspoding to the two months with the largest precipitation in Mexico – it was found that precipitation data from MexHiResClimDB has the lowest MAE (8.7 mm), compared to those of L15 (9.5 mm), Daymet (10.1 mm) and CHIRPS (11.7 mm). For <span class="inline-formula"><i>T</i>_min</span> and <span class="inline-formula"><i>T</i>_max</span>, the lowest MAE was obtained with MexHiResClimDB (1.7 and 1.8 °C, respectively), followed by Daymet (2.0 °C for both temperatures) and L15 (2.4 and 2.5 °C). With this new database an analysis of the extreme events of precipitation and temperature in Mexico for the 1951–2020 period was undertaken: the wettest year was 1958, the wettest day 26 September 1970, and September of 2013 the wettest month. It was also found that eight out of the ten days with the highest <span class="inline-formula"><i>T</i>_min</span> occurred in 2020, the two months with the highest <span class="inline-formula"><i>T</i>_min</span> were July and August of 2020 and that the six years with the highest <span class="inline-formula"><i>T</i>_min</span> were 2015–2020. When <span class="inline-formula"><i>T</i>_max</span> was analysed, it was found that the hottest day was 15 June 1998, while June of 1998 was the hottest month and 2020 the hottest year, and that the four hottest years occurred between 2011–2020. Nationwide (and considering 1961–1990 as the baseline period), <span class="inline-formula"><i>T</i>_min</span>, <span class="inline-formula"><i>T</i>_avg</span> and <span class="inline-formula"><i>T</i>_max</span> have increased, with their anomalies drastically increasing in recent years and reaching values above 1.0 °C in 2020. At the same time, precipitation has also decreased in recent years – which combined with the increase in temperature will have severe impacts on water availability. This new database provides a tool to quantify – in detail – the spatio-temporal variability of climate throughout Mexico.</p> <p>The MexHiResClimDB entire dataset is available on Figshare (<a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.7689428.v2">https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.7689428.v2</a>, <span class="cit" id="xref_altparen.1"><a href="#bib1.bibx16">Carrera-Hernández</a>, <a href="#bib1.bibx16">2025</a><a href="#bib1.bibx16">a</a></span>).</p>