In-situ airborne observations by the FAAM BAE-146 aircraft for SADDLEWORTHMOOR FAAM Aircraft Project (SaddleworthMoor).

This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA4) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). Twelve marine mammal species occur regularly in the SEA4 area: grey seal, harbour seal, hooded seal, harbour porpoise, white-beaked dolphin, Atlantic white-sided dolphin, Risso's dolphin, long-finned pilot whale, killer whale, minke whale, fin whale and sperm whale. A further eleven cetacean species and four pinniped species are occasional visitors. This report describes the distribution and abundance of these mammals and their ecological importance. The SEA4 area is an important area for cetaceans, but little is known about the abundance or seasonal distribution of many species. Marine mammals make use of sound for a variety of purposes: finding prey, detecting predators, communication and probably navigation. The offshore oil and gas industry generates underwater noise at every stage of the process: during exploration seismic surveys, drilling, production and decommissioning. The effects of these different sources of underwater noise on marine mammals are discussed. The use of explosives for underwater cutting and demolition during the decommissioning of platforms and installations may pose a serious threat to some marine mammals. However, current understanding of the effects of noise on marine mammals is rudimentary. The effects of pollution on seals and cetaceans are discussed, including the effects of oil spills. The diseases to which they are subject are briefly discussed, as are non-oil management issues such as fisheries bycatch.

This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA2) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). SEA2 focuses on the mature areas of the North Sea UK continental shelf which is divided into 3 areas - Northern, Central and Southern North Sea. This paper provides an overview of cephalopods - squid, octopus, cuttlefish in the SEA2 area. Cephalopods are short-lived, carnivorous animals that have rapid growth rates and play an important part in oceanic and coastal food webs. They are preyed on by cetaceans, fish and seabirds, and are predators themselves, feeding on fish, crustaceans, molluscs and cephalopods. Knowledge of cephalopod distribution in Scottish waters is mainly based on information from commercial whitefish vessels that catch squid as a by-catch. The loliginid squid Loligo forbesi is the predominant species. English cephalopod landings are dominated by cuttlefish caught in the English Channel outside the area of interest. The benthic octopod Eledone cirrhosa, though a highly valued species in southern Europe, is usually discarded by fishermen in Scottish waters. Fishery management statistics indicate that the areas of highest abundance of Loligo forbesi and of Eledone cirrhosa lie outside the SEA2 area. Cephalopods naturally accumulate high levels of trace metals. The potential of drilling operations to introduce trace metals into the sea is discussed. It is concluded that the overall impact on cephalopods and cephalopod fisheries in the SEA2 area by further oilfield development would be slight.

This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA4) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). This report is a synthesis of information on human activities which might have an impact on, or themselves be affected by, further oil and gas developments in the SEA4 area. The activities include fishing, mariculture, shipping, energy (both existing oil and gas developments and renewable energy), telecommunications, military activities, waste disposal, dredging and aggregate extraction, tourism, coastal and marine archaeological sites. The SEA4 area hosts a wide variety of different users. Some have been there for centuries, others are more recent arrivals. Among the older industries and activities are fisheries, ports and shipping and military activities; the oil and gas industry and mariculture are newer arrivals. Orkney and Shetland have provided major infrastructure for the North Sea oil and gas industry since the 1970s, and there have been producing oil fields to the west of Shetland since 1997. Finfish and shellfish farming are important industries in the coastal regions of the SEA4 area.

This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA5) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). This report reviews published and newly-acquired seabed geological data in an area of 78,000 square kilometres extending from the coast to more than 200 m water depth to the east of the British Isles. While it can be argued that the modern environment is a product of past environmental conditions, the basis for the review is also that our understanding of the modern environment can be significantly improved if new techniques, data and ideas are applied to a revision of the existing research knowledge. The purpose of the review is to place the characteristics of the seabed features that were surveyed by the DTI in 2003, and the processes forming them, into an improved understanding of their historical, local and regional context. In this way a strong element of the review is to include the results from exploration and discovery. The survey data included multibeam, sidescan sonar, seismic-reflection profiles, sea floor photographs and samples.

The CAESAR project aimed to investigate the radiative properties of cirrus cloud over a wide range of wavelengths in combination with airborne in situ measurements of cirrus microphysical properties. This dataset collection contains atmospheric measurements of vertical and horizontal distribution of ice crystal size, shape and ice water content and meteorology during summer and winter periods. Data were obtained by Flights using the FAAM BAE-146 to observe frontal and anvil cirrus co-incident with the CloudSat Aqua-train and Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) satellites over the Chilbolton cloud radars and lidars as well as ocean/sea surrounding the UK. The winter FAAM campaign ran from 14 November 2005 17 December 2005 and the summer FAAM campaign ran from 3-17 May 2006.

Rapid Climate Change (RAPID) was a £20 million, six-year (2001-2007) programme for the Natural Environment Research Council. The programme aimed to improve the ability to quantify the probability and magnitude of future rapid change in climate, with a main (but not exclusive) focus on the role of the Atlantic Ocean's Thermohaline Circulation. This dataset collection contains comparison of high-resolution isotope records from terrestrial archives in NW Europe with model simulations of isotopes in precipitation. The aims of the proposal were to compare high-resolution isotope records from terrestrial archives in NW Europe with model simulations of isotopes in precipitation in order to investigate the role of different forcing factors in rapid climate change during the late glacial and Holocene and to undertake model validation. The proposal constitutes a UK contribution to the PAGES ISOMAP initiative. A water isotope model was developed for the UK Hadley centre model HadCM3. Comparisons have been made between simulations of the isotopic composition of precipitation during periods of rapid climatic change and reconstructions from well-dated and well-calibrated palaeo-archives (lake sediments, peat and speleothem) generated in this study and obtained from the literature, in order to investigate the causes and nature of abrupt climatic events.

Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) mission was funded jointly by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change External Link (DECC) and the Australian Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research External Link (DIISR). This dataset collection contains version 3 ATSR2 Multimission land and sea surface data. These data are identical to version 2.1. The instrument uses thermal channels at 3.7, 10.8, and 12 microns wavelength; and reflected visible/near infra-red channels at 0.555, 0.659, 0.865, and 1.61 microns wavelength. Level 1b products contain gridded brightness temperature and reflectance. Level 2 products contain land and sea-surface temperature, and NDVI at a range of spatial resolutions. The third reprocessing was done to implement updated algorithms, processors, and auxiliary files. The data were acquired by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Envisat satellite, and the NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC) mirrors the data for UK users.

This dataset provides stream networks for three river basins in eastern Sri Lanka (Mundeni Aru, Maduru Oya and Miyangolla Ela). The stream networks were developed for use in hydrologic modelling and are provided as shapefiles. The work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (Grant NE/S005838/1). Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/0537af26-5cab-4381-aca0-d997db421111

In-situ airborne observations by the DO228-212 /D-CFFU - DLR aircraft aircraft for HiLBilly- Hyperspectral imaging of lake biogeochemical properties in optically-complex systems (HILBILLY).