A global typical meteorological year (TMY) database on ERA5 dataset

The outdoor climate condition is one of the deterministic factors influencing building energy consumption. Building performance simulation (BPS) tools usually adopt typical meteorological year (TMY) as the outdoor climate input. Despite that many scholars and institutes have developed TMY datasets, these datasets are usually based on distinct data sources and methods. Considering the increase of international cooperation construction projects, compatible TMY dataset for different countries is in urgent need. This paper presents a global typical meteorological year (TMY) database covering 38,947 stations worldwide based on the fifth-generation atmospheric reanalysis product released by the European Center (ERA5). The data is created with Chinese Standard Weather Database (CSWD) method to reflect the average level of historical weather. The dataset is saved in a 55 GB database of compressed CSV files and a website is established where users can download their required TMY data for certain cities according to the longitude and latitude information. A systematic validation is conducted to confirm the feasibility of ERA5 as data source and validity of generated TMY data. This TMY-ERA5 dataset is fundamental and essential in building system designs of international construction projects, building performance simulation, especially for some countries lacking ground meteorological stations or missing meteorological year data in the building sector. It can be used as references for other meteorological climate studies.