ERA5 Reanalysis
Copernicus Climate Change Service (ECMWF)
A global reanalysis that reconstructs the atmosphere hour by hour back to 1940 — temperature, wind, precipitation, soil moisture and more — on a uniform grid.
A plain-language guide
The open Earth, explained in data
Governments and science agencies publish astonishing amounts of free data about our planet — temperature, forests, oceans, cities, fires, groundwater. EarthinData curates the most useful of it, explains it without jargon, and links you straight to the official source.
31curated datasets
9themes
28official providers
$0cost to access every dataset
Why EarthinData works
Curated, not dumped
31 hand-checked datasets from 28 official providers — every entry explains what it measures, how far back it goes and how fresh it is.
Licence clarity
Each page summarises what you may do with the data in plain words and links the provider’s authoritative licence.
Live, in your browser
Real charts from keyless open APIs — USGS earthquakes and Open-Meteo climate history — no account, no cost.
Zero-friction access
No sign-up, no paywall, no tracking. Access links go straight to the official provider pages.
Start here — six datasets that explain the planet
View all 31 datasetsOur World in Data — CO₂ and Greenhouse Gases
Our World in Data (Global Change Data Lab)
Country-level CO₂ and greenhouse-gas emissions, cleaned and charted with full sourcing — the friendliest doorway into emissions data.
Landsat Archive
U.S. Geological Survey / NASA
The longest continuous satellite record of Earth’s land surface — five decades of 30-metre-class imagery, free since 2008.
Copernicus Sentinel-2
ESA / EU Copernicus Programme
High-resolution colour and infrared imagery of all land surfaces, refreshed about every five days with both satellites — the modern standard for land monitoring.
Global Forest Watch
World Resources Institute
Maps and dashboards of forest change worldwide — tree cover loss, fire alerts and land-use leases in one interface.
GBIF Biodiversity Occurrence Records
Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Hundreds of millions of records of where species have been observed and collected, aggregated from museums, herbaria and citizen science.
Browse by question
All themes- Is the Earth warming, and how do we know?Climate & Temperature9 datasets
- What is happening to the ocean?Oceans & Coasts3 datasets
- How is the surface of the Earth changing?Land, Forests & Agriculture10 datasets
- How clean is the air, and where?Air Quality & Atmosphere5 datasets
- Where is water disappearing, and where is it at risk?Water & Drought6 datasets
- Where and how do people live?Population, Cities & Economy7 datasets
- What is happening right now, and what has struck before?Hazards & Disasters7 datasets
- Where can clean energy be built?Energy & Renewables5 datasets
- What lives where, and how is it doing?Biodiversity & Ecosystems4 datasets
Simple, honest pricing
Open data stays open — support keeps it that way.
Explorer
$0 forever
Everything an individual needs to work with open Earth data.
- Full dataset catalog
- Search, filters & sorting
- Live USGS & climate charts
- All learning guides
Most Popular
Classroom
$0 forever
Built for teaching with real evidence — bring the planet into your lesson.
- Beginner guides & walkthroughs
- Spreadsheet-friendly sources
- Theme pages for lesson planning
- Citation templates on every page
Organisation
Custom partnership
Sponsor the catalog or partner with us on curated themes for your audience.
- Theme sponsorship
- Curated collections
- Data-literacy content
- Supports free access for all
Open data in action
See the data, live
Real charts, built in your browser from the same open providers we catalog — USGS earthquakes and Open-Meteo climate history. No account, no cost, nothing simulated.
Who it’s for
Our missionMaya — geography teacher
A trustworthy temperature record she can open in a spreadsheet before Monday’s lesson.
Learns → GISTEMP page → CSV download → citation template.
Daniel — data journalist
A defensible source for a story about fires, within the hour.
Live page → FIRMS entry → official map → licence note for the editor.
Priya — NGO analyst
Groundwater and population layers to scope a water-risk project.
Water theme → GRACE + WorldPop → official portals → formats guide.
Representative personas drawn from our target audiences — not user testimonials.
How EarthinData works
1 · We curate
Every entry is a real, established open dataset from an official provider — no scraping, no mirroring, no mixed-quality aggregations.
2 · We translate
Each page says what the data measures, how far back it goes, which formats it comes in, and what the licence lets you do — in words a non-specialist can use.
3 · We point home
Access links always lead to the provider’s own pages, so you always get the current data and the authoritative licence terms.
New to Earth data?
All guides- Open data licences, in plain wordsWhat "free", "open" and "public domain" actually let you do — and how to check before you reuse a dataset.
- Raster vs vector: the two shapes of Earth dataPixels or polygons? Understanding which shape a dataset comes in tells you which tools will open it.
- What "10-metre resolution" actually meansResolution decides what you can see. Here is how to reason about it before picking imagery like Landsat or Sentinel-2.
- Your first Earth dataset: a 15-minute tourFrom question to downloaded data using three doors into open Earth data — with no expertise assumed.