Growing Degree Days

The Growing Degree Days index is relevant to agriculture. This Index is part of the Mean temperature Hazard type of the Heat and Cold category of the classification.
The index measures heat accumulation by cumulating daily degrees above a temperature threshold. It provides information about the growing season and can be used to evaluate crop and pest development rates such as the date that a crop reaches maturity. In some cases, an upper temperature limit is applied as well. National or regional applications may use different temperature thresholds to account for local conditions and crop types. A higher value means better conditions for crop development.

Definition

The cumulative sum of daily degrees above a daily mean temperature of 5°C (°C Day⁻¹).

Data Sources

The data was assembled on behalf of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) based on climate projections hosted on the C3S Climate Data Store (CDS). The Index is calculated from a set of nine bias-corrected multi-model simulations from the EURO-CORDEX experiment. These simulations have a spatial resolution of 0.25° x 0.25°, a 3-hourly output, and cover scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. More information about the dataset can be found in the corresponding CDS documentation resources.

Supporting Information

Further information about this application can be found in the Product User Guide (PUG) of the application in the documentation resources of the CDS.

Data download

The aggregated data shown on the map can be downloaded as csv files.