The International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) has the lead role in addressing land-atmosphere interactions - process modelling, data retrieval algorithms, field experiment design and execution, and the development of global data sets. The ISLSCP II dataset contains comprehensive data over the 10 year period from 1986 to 1995, from the International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP). The ISLSCP II datasets are compiled in four key areas: land cover, hydrometeorlolgy, radiation and soils. They are mapped to consistent grids (0.5 x 0.5 degrees for topography, 1 x 1 degrees for meteorological parameters). Some data have a grid size of 0.25 x 0.25 degrees. The temporal resolution for most data sets is monthly (however a few are at finer resolution - 3 hourly). This dataset is public. ISLSCP is one of several projects of the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX), and has the lead role in addressing land-atmosphere interactions - process modelling, data retrieval algorithms, field experiment design and execution, and the development of global data sets. ISLSCP was established in 1983 under the United Nation's Environmental Programme to promote the use of satellite data for the global land surface data sets needed for climate studies. In 1994, ISLSCP produced a five-volume CD-ROM collection of global data sets to support energy, water and biogeochemical cycling studies, covering 1987 - 1988 - the ISLSCP I Initiative. The ISLSCP I data sets are available via the BADC ISLSCP I page. The ISLSCP working group meet regularly to assist Goddard Space Flight Center staff to coordinate production and publication of the various data sets in the data collection.

The project aim was to develop process-based computer simulations of the dispersal of Homo erectus out of Africa. This involved developing realistic constraints on the patterns of vegetation and the effects of changes in global sea level. It was assumed that this migration out of Africa could be investigated through the paradigm of a single migration event, starting around 2 millions of years ago and arriving in Dmanisi around 1.8 millions of years ago. The data archived here consists of the vegetation patterns used in constructing the simulations and the patterns of climate variability used to constrain the variations in sea level and vegetation change. From these data it is possible to reproduce the simulation results. Simulation results are available from J.K. Hughes, A. Haywood, S.J. Mithen, B.W. Sellwood, P.J. Valdes (In Press) Investigating Early Hominin Dispersal Patterns : developing a framework for climate data integration. Journal Of Human Evolution.

The Coupled Ocean Atmosphere and European Climate (COAPEC) is a NERC thematic programme designed to examine the variability of the Earth's climate. The goal of COAPEC is to determine the impact on climate, especially European climate, of the coupling between the Atlantic Ocean and the atmosphere. The British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC) is the primary distribution data centre for COAPEC. This dataset contains adjusted climatology data from the Southampton Oceanographic Centre (SOC).

The Coupled Ocean Atmosphere and European Climate (COAPEC) is a NERC thematic programme designed to examine the variability of the Earth's climate. The goal of COAPEC is to determine the impact on climate, especially European climate, of the coupling between the Atlantic Ocean and the atmosphere. The British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC) is the primary distribution data centre for COAPEC. This dataset contains climatology data from the Southampton Oceanographic Centre (SOC).

The International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project was established in 1983 under the United Nation's Environmental Programme to promote the use of satellite data for the global land surface data sets needed for climate studies. This CD-ROM set contains the Initiative I data collection. The collection four areas : land cover, hydro-meteorology, radiation, and soils, spanning the 24 month period 1987-1988. All but one are mapped to a common spatial resolution and grid (1 degree x 1 degree). Temporal resolution for most datasets is monthly; however, a few are at a finer resolution (e.g., 6-hourly). The data within the four areas are organized into five groups within this collection: vegetation, Hydrology and Soils, Snow, Ice and Oceans, Radiation and Clouds, and Near-Surface Meteorology. This dataset collection is public. While ISLSCP Inititative I covers 2 years (1987 and 1988), ISLSCP Inititative II spans a 10-year period for 1986 to 1995.

Collection of North Pacific core-top foraminifera census data. Grant abstract: The geological record offers an invaluable window into the different ways earth's climate can operate. The most recent large-scale changes in earth's climate, prior to modern climate change, were the Pleistocene glacial cycles, which feature growth and disintegration of large ice sheets, rapid shifts in major rain belts, and abrupt changes in ocean circulation. Changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, reconstructed from air bubbles in ice cores, are intimately linked with these ice age climate events. Indeed the close coupling of CO2 and temperature over glacial-interglacial cycles has become an iconic image in climate science, a poster child for the importance of CO2 in climate, and the natural template against which to compare current man-made CO2 rise. However despite the high profile of glacial-interglacial CO2 change, we still don't fully understand its cause. The leading hypotheses for glacial CO2 change involve increased CO2 uptake by the ocean during ice ages, which is vented to the atmosphere during deglaciation. However despite decades of work these hypotheses have had few direct tests, due to a lack of data on CO2 storage in the glacial ocean. One of the most glaring holes in our understanding of ice age CO2 and climate change is the behaviour of the Pacific. This basin contains half of global ocean volume, and ~30 times more CO2 than the atmosphere, and so its behaviour will have global impact. It has also recently been suggested that the North Pacific may play an active role in deglacial CO2 rise, with local deep water formation helping to release CO2 from the deep ocean to the atmosphere. If correct, this hypothesis provides a new view of Earth's climate system, with deep water able to form in each high latitude basin in the recent past, and the North Pacific potentially playing a pivotal role in deglaciation. However few data exist to test either the long-standing ideas on the Pacific's role in glacial CO2 storage, nor the more recent hypothesis that North Pacific deep water contributed to rapid deglacial CO2 rise. Given the size of the Pacific CO2 reservoir, our lack of knowledge on its behaviour is a major barrier to a full understanding of glacial-interglacial CO2 change and the climate of the ice ages. This proposal aims to transform our understanding of ice age CO2 and climate change, by investigating how the deep North Pacific stored CO2 during ice ages, and released it back to the atmosphere during deglaciations. We will use cutting-edge geochemical measurements of boron isotopes in microfossil shells (which record the behaviour of CO2 in seawater) and radiocarbon (which records how recently deep waters left the surface ocean), on recently collected samples from deep ocean sediment cores. By comparing these new records to other published data, we will be able to distinguish between different mechanisms of CO2 storage in the deep Pacific, and to test the extent of North Pacific deep water formation and CO2 release during the last deglaciation. We will also improve the techniques used to make boron isotope measurements, and add new constraints on the relationship between boron isotopes and seawater CO2 chemistry, which will help other groups using this technique to study CO2 change. To help us understand more about the mechanisms of changes in CO2 and ocean circulation, and provide synergy with scientists in other related disciplines, we will compare our data to results from earth system models, and collaborate with experts on nutrient cycling and climate dynamics. Our project will ultimately improve understanding of CO2 exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, which is an important factor for predicting the path of future climate change.

Published papers for NERC grant NE/I020571/2. Grant award abstract: How does the Earth's climate recover from events of rapid and extreme global warming or cooling? Why have the huge fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 in the geological past not caused runaway climate effects, making the Earth become Venus- or Mars-like? Silicate weathering of the continents is the main CO2 removal process, and therefore a dominant long-term climate control mechanism. However the debate on what controls silicate weathering, and therefore atmospheric CO2, is still contentious and ongoing. A correct understanding of the controls on weathering, and its link to atmospheric CO2 levels is critical, because 1) it is possible that weathering is the process that has kept Earth's climate in the relatively narrow bounds required for life over the past several hundred million years; 2) it is impossible to decipher the causes and consequences of long-term climate variations through Earth's history without accurate weathering data, which in turn impacts on our understanding of current climate; 3) comprehension of climate systems leads to more accurate modelling of future climate change; 4) rapid global climate change inevitably leads to large mass extinctions. Therefore it is important to unravel the link between extinctions and the Earth's climate systems, including CO2 control. Lithium isotopes have gained much interest over the past few years because large variations in the Li isotope ratio in rivers and clays are caused by silicate weathering processes. Furthermore, unlike tracers of weathering used previously, Li isotopes also respond to the intensity of weathering, and therefore can be linked directly to weathering rates. This is critical, because for the first time is gives us a window into the variation of weathering rates through time, which in turn means we can use the Earth's past climate variations as a natural laboratory. Three of the largest climate fluctuations and mass extinctions in Earth's history will be examined and modelled, primarily using Li isotopes, but also several other tracers, which will serve to reveal information on marine and volcanic conditions at the time. These geological periods (the end-Ordovician glaciation (450 Ma (million years ago)), the Permo-Triassic event (251 Ma) and the Cenomanian-Turonian Ocean Anoxic Event (94 Ma)), represent times when rapid warming or cooling of Earth's climate occurred, resulting in the extinction of up to 90% of life on Earth. Samples from these time periods exist in the form of marine calcium carbonate. This was precipitated (either inorganically, or via various life forms) in the oceans at the time, and provides a record of ocean chemistry, which in turn is directly linked to the atmospheric conditions. Analysing Li isotopes is a complex procedure, and will be undertaken at Oxford University. Collaborations will exist with Prof. Jan Veizer (Ottawa University) and Dr. Christoph Korte (Copenhagen University), who are specialists in the studied time periods, with Prof. Andy Ridgwell (Bristol University), who is an expert climate modeller, and with Prof. David Harper, who is an expert in mass extinctions. By understanding weathering and climatic responses to periods of rapid global warming and cooling we will gain critical information on Earth's climate feedbacks, and on processes that led to the extinction of vast proportions of the biosphere.

Ensemble of simulated groundwater levels for Iloilo, Philippines. The simulated time series of data covers the period December 1979 to December 2089 under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP2.6 and RCP 8.5). Each ensemble member csv file contains a timeseries of groundwater levels for thirteen locations within the Iloilo region. The textfile included in the folder shows the coordinates for these locations.

This dataset consists of reconstructions of daily groundwater levels for eight boreholes in Burkina Faso. Data for each borehole is provided in an individual csv file, with reconstructed groundwater level time series reported in metres above sea level (GWL, mASL). The groundwater level reconstructions were derived in 2019 as a part of the BRAVE project (NE/M008827/1 and NE/M008983/1) to develop an improved understanding of temporal variability in groundwater levels in sub-Saharan Africa. The reconstructions were derived using the lumped conceptual groundwater model AquiMod. Observed groundwater level time series for the eight boreholes were modelled using AquiMod, and the calibrated models were used with historic precipitation and potential evapotranspiration data to derive the reconstructions. The length of the time series of reconstructed groundwater levels varies between the boreholes due to differences in the length of the precipitation time series used to derive the reconstructions. Full details of this dataset are reported by Ascott et al. (2020). Ascott, M.J., Macdonald, D.M.J., Black, E., Verhoef, A., Nakohoun, P., Tirogo, J., Sandwidi, W.J.P., Bliefernicht, J., Sorensen, J.P.R., Bossa, A.Y., 2020. In Situ Observations and Lumped Parameter Model Reconstructions Reveal Intra-Annual to Multidecadal Variability in Groundwater Levels in Sub-Saharan Africa. Water Resour. Res., 56(12): e2020WR028056. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR028056

This dataset comprises a map of groundwater recharge for Africa and a database of the 134 observations used to generate the map. The map shows long term average annual groundwater recharge in mm per annum relevant to the period 1970 to 2020. It is in the form of a GIS shapefile and is available as a layer package for ESRI and also as a georeferenced TIFF and BIL file for easy exchange with other software. The database contains 134 sites for which ground based observations for groundwater recharge are available. These 134 sites are from previously published material and have gone through a QA procedure and been accurately geolocated to be included in the dataset. For each record there is a latitude, longitude, recharge estimate, recharge range, time period for the measurement; scale for which the estimate is made, methods used, a confidence rating and reason for this rating, and the reference from where the data originate. In addition, the database includes for each observation information from other continental datasets including: climate data, landcover, aquifer type, soil group and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI).