Abstract
The scale height (SH) represents the height increment for a certain parameter to decrease to 36.7% (1/e) of its value at a certain height. Here we present ERA5-SH, a gridded dataset containing the SH values of six troposphere key parameters (PWV, WVD, T(m), ZTD, ZHD and ZWD) based on ERA5 reanalysis from 2013 to 2022, with a temporal resolution of 1 hour and a spatial resolution of 1°. The dataset was generated using numerical integral and exponential fitting, and exhibits high reliability with mean coefficients of determination being 0.991, 0.957, 0.980, 0.999, 0.999, and 0.995, respectively. Using the global distributed radiosonde sites as references, the mean RMSE for the six parameters were 0.243 km, 0.189 km, 3.290 km, 0.879 km, 0.681 km, and 0.263 km, respectively. This dataset will contribute to a deeper understanding of the tropospheric vertical distribution and to improve the accuracy of atmospheric delay modeling, which are vital for the advancement of the Earth observation technologies with high precision.