This dataset contains the seasonal and annual mean turbulence dissipation rate (on a base-10 log scale) in the free atmosphere, which is calculated using Thorpe analysis, based on 8 years of high-resolution radiosonde measurements in China. The turbulence dissipation rate dataset includes 15 files, corresponding to three height intervals: the lower troposphere (LT), the upper troposphere (UT), and the lower stratosphere (LS), each of which has five subsets: spring (MAM), summer (JJA), autumn (SON), winter (DJF) and annual (ANN) averages. This dataset is named in the form of "Turbulence_Height interval_Season.hdf", in which "height interval" represents LT, UT and LS, whereas "Season" represents MAM, JJA, SON, DJF and ANN. Each file contains an array representing the horizontal distribution of seasonally and annually averaged turbulence dissipation rate at three different height intervals: including LT, UT and LS. The size of the array in each file is 81 (latitude of 15°N to 55°N)× 131 (longitude ranging from 70°E to 135°E) with a grid spacing of 0.5°. Note that the coordinate for the first grid (i.e., the upper leftmost grid) in each file is (15°N, 70°E).