The <250um fraction of 19 household vacuum dust samples (collected by citizen participants during 2019-2021) were extracted using high throughput isolation of microbial genomic DNA and sequenced using Illumina NextSeq (12 samples from a national campaign within the UK, 7 samples from Greece and a negative reagent control included to ensure sterility throughout the processing and sequencing steps). These data are available (following period of embargo) from the European Nucleotide Archive via the individual sample accession numbers ERS9609044 to ERS9609063, submitted under the study ID PRJEB49546. Sample location data are provided at town/city, country level. Given the amount of time people spend indoors, residential environments are perhaps the most important, but understudied environments with respect to human exposure to microbes and other contaminants. Across our urban environments, anthropogenic activities (both current and legacy) provide for multiple sources and pathways for the generation and distribution of microbes, inorganic and organic contaminants within the home environment, yet we know relatively little about the potential for dissemination of antibiotic resistance in microbial communities within indoor dust.

This dataset contains Raman Lidar data from four UK sites in the Met Office Volcanic Ash lidar network for the 15th and 16th October 2017 when ex-hurricane Ophelia passed to the West of the British Isles, bringing dust from the Sahara and smoke from Portuguese forest fires that was observable to the naked eye in the UK. The sites included are Camborne, Rhyl, Watnall, and Loftus. The data files contain profiles for co-polar, cross-polar and Raman backscatter data. The data support the following publication: Osborne, M., Adam, M., Buxmann, J., Sugier, J., Marenco, F., and Haywood, J.: Saharan dust and biomass burning aerosols during ex-hurricane Ophelia: validation of the new UK lidar and sun-photometer network, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2018-695.

The Icelandic Volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, started erupting on 14th April 2010. The volcanic ash cloud produced covered much of Northern Europe for several weeks causing extensive disruption to air travel. The UK and European atmospheric communities had many instruments - both airborne and ground-based, remote sensing and in-situ - taking measurements of the ash cloud throughout this period. This dataset contains a variety of satellite products including dust and sulphur dioxide (SO2) retrievals.