Database of water levels in selected observation boreholes: daily, weekly or monthly measurements. Consistent set of boreholes in catchments relatively undisturbed by pumping distributed across most significant aquifer units in the UK. Most sites have more than 30 years of data, and some sites have considerably longer time series. The dataset represents only 5% of active groundwater monitoring networks run by UK measuring agencies. BGS holds other, historical, groundwater level data, including one off measurements and time series.

This is the collection of cores and samples held by BGS for the sea areas around the UK. It includes material collected by BGS during its mapping projects and material donated to BGS by other organisations. The main core and sample types are grab samples (sea-bed), gravity cores, vibrocores and rock-drill cores (up to 6m in length), and borehole cores (up to 274m in length). The sea-bed grab samples are Holocene sediments present at the sea-bed and are stored in plastic jars. Where possible, sub-sample material has been retained after analysis. The bulk of the cores consist of Holocene and Pleistocene material. The rest are of bedrock ranging in age from Neogene to Pre-Cambrian. A lot of the core was collected in plastic liner tubing and the unlithified cores have been split vertically. The bulk of the material was collected in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and early 1990's with ongoing additions of new sample and cores each year. The distribution is very variable, but, in general, there are grab samples and/or shallow cores spaced about every 5 - 10km across the entire UK Continental Shelf. In some localised areas the sampling density is much higher. The samples and cores are applicable to a wide range of uses including environmental, geotechnical and geological studies.

A sonic anemometer and a gas analyser measuring water vapour and carbon dioxide are co-located within a compound dedicated to measuring fluxes using the eddy covariance method at Chilbolton Observatory. The eddy covariance technique is an atmospheric measurement method used to calculate vertical turbulent fluxes within the atmospheric boundary layer. This is the lowest region of the troposphere and is usually well mixed, particularly during daylight hours, due to convective heating from the sun. It is this motion in the lower troposphere that makes the technique possible. In order to properly measure the turbulent properties of the atmosphere the measurements must be made at a high frequency - 20 Hz for the Chilbolton Observatory system. A sonic anemometer measures the 3 orthogonal components of the wind velocity by measuring the changes in the time of flight of sonic pulses between 3 transmitter/receiver pairs as a result of the air velocity. A gas analyser measures the absorptance of radiation along a fixed path and uses this to determine the concentration of a gas in air. For each gas the absorptance at 2 wavelengths is measured 152 times per second, one affected by that gas and the other unaffected. There are more accurate instruments available for measuring water vapour and carbon dioxide (e.g. a relative humidity sensor for water vapour) but the benefit of the gas analyser is that it has a sufficiently fast response to resolve the rapid changes in concentration as a result of turbulence.

Continuous measurements are made using a Kipp & Zonen CNR4 net flux radiometer. It measures both downwelling and upwelling radiation in 2 wavelength bands which are common to many similar instruments. A shorter wavelength band measures radiation received from the sun. It encompasses the visible spectrum, together with near infrared and longer wavelength ultraviolet, over a wavelength range of approximately 0.29 - 2.8 µm. It shows a clear response to the day/night cycle. Clouds and other aerosols reduce the detected radiation. A longer wavelength band measures longer wavelength infrared radiation (approximately 4.5 - 32 µm) produced by emission from the atmosphere and earth's surface. It does not respond significantly to the day/night cycle but changes according to the time of year and degree of cloud cover.

The UK daily rainfall data describe the rainfall accumulation and precipitation amount over a 24 hour period. The data are collected by observation stations across the UK and transmitted within the following message types: WADRAIN, NCM, AWSDLY, DLY3208, SSER and WAMRAIN. The data spans from 1853 to present.

This dataset contains output from the TMPA (TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation) Algorithm, and provides precipitation estimates in the TRMM regions that have the (nearly-zero) bias of the ”TRMM Combined Instrument” precipitation estimate and the dense sampling of high-quality microwave data with fill-in using microwave-calibrated infrared estimates. The granule size is 3 hours. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) was a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration (JAXA) Agency to study rainfall for weather and climate research.

The UK hourly rainfall data describes the rainfall amount (and duration from tilting syphon gauges) during the hour (or hours) ending at the specified time. The data also conatins precipitation amounts, however precipitation measured over 24 hours will not be stored. The data is collected by observation stations across the UK and transmitted within the following message types: NCM, AWSHRLY, DLY3208, SREW, SSER and WAHRAIN. The data spans from 1915 to present.

This dataset contains ERA5 model level analysis parameter data. ERA5 is the 5th generation reanalysis project from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECWMF) - see linked documentation for further details. This dataset contains a limited selection of all available variables and have been converted to netCDF from the original GRIB files held on the ECMWF system. They have also been translated onto a regular latitude-longitude grid during the extraction process from the ECMWF holdings. For a fuller set of variables please see the linked Copernicus Data Store (CDS) data tool, linked to from this record. Surface level analysis and forecast data to complement this dataset are also available. Data from a 10 member ensemble, run at lower spatial and temporal resolution, were also produced to provide an uncertainty estimate for the output from the single high resolution (hourly output at 31 km grid spacing) 'HRES' realisation producing data in this dataset. The ERA5 global atmospheric reanalysis of the covers 1979 to 2 months behind the present month. This follows on from the ERA-15, ERA-40 rand ERA-interim re-analysis projects. An initial release of ERA5 data (ERA5t) is made roughly 5 days behind the present date. These will be subsequently reviewed ahead of being released by ECMWF as quality assured data within 3 months. CEDA holds a 6 month rolling copy of the latest ERA5t data. See related datasets linked to from this record. However, for the period 2000-2006 the initial ERA5 release was found to suffer from stratospheric temperature biases and so new runs to address this issue were performed resulting in the ERA5.1 release (see linked datasets). Note, though, that Simmons et al. 2020 (technical memo 859) report that "ERA5.1 is very close to ERA5 in the lower and middle troposphere." but users of data from this period should read the technical memo 859 for further details.

The UK daily weather observation data contain meteorological values measured on a 24 hour time scale. The measurements of sunshine duration, concrete state, snow depth, fresh snow depth, and days of snow, hail, thunder and gail were attained by observation stations across the UK and transmitted within DLY3208, NCM, AWSDLY and SYNOP messages. The data span from 1880 to present.

This dataset contains ERA5 surface level analysis parameter data from 10 ensemble runs. ERA5 is the 5th generation reanalysis project from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECWMF) - see linked documentation for further details. The ensemble members were used to derive means and spread data (see linked datasets). Ensemble means and spreads were calculated from the ERA5t 10 member ensemble, run at a reduced resolution compared with the single high resolution (hourly output at 31 km grid spacing) 'HRES' realisation, for which these data have been produced to provide an uncertainty estimate. This dataset contains a limited selection of all available variables and have been converted to netCDF from the original GRIB files held on the ECMWF system. They have also been translated onto a regular latitude-longitude grid during the extraction process from the ECMWF holdings. For a fuller set of variables please see the linked Copernicus Data Store (CDS) data tool, linked to from this record. Note, ensemble standard deviation is often referred to as ensemble spread and is calculated as the standard deviation of the 10-members in the ensemble (i.e., including the control). It is not the sample standard deviation, and thus were calculated by dividing by 10 rather than 9 (N-1). See linked datasets for ensemble member and ensemble mean data. The ERA5 global atmospheric reanalysis of the covers 1979 to 2 months behind the present month. This follows on from the ERA-15, ERA-40 rand ERA-interim re-analysis projects. An initial release of ERA5 data (ERA5t) is made roughly 5 days behind the present date. These will be subsequently reviewed ahead of being released by ECMWF as quality assured data within 3 months. CEDA holds a 6 month rolling copy of the latest ERA5t data. See related datasets linked to from this record. However, for the period 2000-2006 the initial ERA5 release was found to suffer from stratospheric temperature biases and so new runs to address this issue were performed resulting in the ERA5.1 release (see linked datasets). Note, though, that Simmons et al. 2020 (technical memo 859) report that "ERA5.1 is very close to ERA5 in the lower and middle troposphere." but users of data from this period should read the technical memo 859 for further details.