The HistLight global lightning stroke density reconstruction (1836–2015) This repository contains a global estimate of past lightning stroke density based on the WGLC and the 20th Century Reanalysis. The reconstruction was made by regressing monthly mean observed lightning density from the WGLC against monthly mean Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) from the 20th Century Reanalysis during the six-year period of overlap (2010-2015). The linear regression was made on a log(WGLC) : log(CAPE) basis. In areas where the explanatory power of the regression model was not statistically significant (P>0.05), no CAPE-based reconstruction was made, and the missing values were filled with the 2010-2015 climatological monthly mean lightning from the WGLC. Further details of the preparation of this dataset will be described in a forthcoming manuscript. Technical features The data are stored in a NetCDF (version 4) file and have the following attributes: Spatial extent: Entire Earth Spatial reference system (SRS): Unprojected (geographic, WGS84) Spatial resolution: half-degree Temporal extent: 1836-2015 (time coordinate refers to the first day of the month) Temporal resolution: monthly Variables included in this release Lightning density (lght) (strokes km-2 day-1)