This red-green-blue (RGB) orthomosaic is composite created from 8994 photographs collected withunmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over the eastern part of Qikiqtaruk, Herschel Island, in the Canadian Yukon (69.5N, 138.8W). The images were collected on the 10th and 11th of August 2017. Further details on the image processing are provided in the Lineage section. This dataset was created by Andrew Cunliffe, with support from Isla Myers-Smith, William Palmer, Jeffrey Kerby and other members of Team Shrub (https://teamshrub.com/), in order to inform ongoing ecological monitoring studies in this area. Part of this orthomosaic was used for a study into permafrost coastline retreat, published in The Cryosphere (Cunliffe, A. M., Tanski, G., Radosavljevic, B., Palmer, W. F., Sachs, T., Lantuit, H., Kerby, J. T., and Myers-Smith, I. H.: Rapid retreat of permafrost coastline observed with aerial drone photogrammetry, The Cryosphere, 13, 1513-1528, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1513-2019, 2019).

This is a survey over the changing topography of a massive ice type site, Peninsula Point (UTM 8N 573400, 7701000), within the Canadian National Landmark, NWT, Canada. These data can be used as a reference for future such studies to assess massive ground ice presence. This dataset contains the survey data from Tromino 3G ENGY instruments, collected from 2019-07-31 - 2019-08-03. The project files contain the metadata of each instrument position in UTM and acquisition times. Data were collected by Northumbria University and Natural Resources Canada. Funding was provided by NERC Arctic Office.

Adventdalen is a medium-sized (513 km^2) catchment in continuous permafrost zone of central Spitsbergen. It has 11.7 % glacier cover, a large flat valley floor comprised of uplifted, glaciomarine sediments, covered in the lower part by a veneer of aeolian sediments up to 4 m thick. The geology of the catchment is dominated by sandstones, shales and carbonates. There are a series of five open system pingos that have formed in the valley floor following uplift of the valley bottom over the last 10000 years. This has caused permafrost aggradation in former marine sediments which are up to 60 m thick. During the formation of this new permafrost, high pressure caused expulsion of groundwaters below, resulting in their upward migration. Freezing of the groundwaters as they reached the ground surface caused expansion and thus formation of the pingo. However, freezing no longer occurs at four of the five pingos, meaning that the groundwaters now discharge at the surface. Samples of the emerging groundwaters were collected every March/April, but also opportunistically during summer months, provided the sites weren''t flooded. Analysis of major ions (by ion chromatography), minor constituents (trace metals by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS) and silica by colorimetric analysis) and gases (O2, CO2 and CH4) were undertaken. Funding was provided by the Joint Programming Initiative (JPI-Climate Topic 2: Russian Arctic and Boreal Systems) Award No. 71126, distributed to Principal Investigator, Andrew Hodson (then of University of Sheffield) via NERC grant NE/M019829/1.

Adventdalen is a medium-sized (513 km2) catchment in continuous permafrost zone of central Spitsbergen. It is an important study area, but the river is highly unsuitable for monitoring runoff on account of the high sediment yield and extremely unstable channel sections in the large delta. This necessitates the estimation of runoff volume through the application of a suitable model. Daily runoff was therefore simulated using daily precipitation and temperature data series (1991-2016) and the HBV model. Daily water temperature and electrical conductivity were also monitored at the point of interest to provide basic water quality parameters alongside the runoff quantity data. Funding was provided by the NERC grant NE/M019829/1.

Soil fungi communities from three Antarctic islands were characterised using DNA sequencing. Between October and November 2011, soil samples were collected from Bird Island, Signy Island and Leonie Island in the sub-Antarctic, low maritime and high maritime Antarctic respectively. Soil was collected under populations of Colobanthus quitensis (Kunth) Bartl. and Deschampsia antarctica Desv., the only two native vascular plant species that occur in Antarctica. Total DNA was extracted from the soils and fungal specific primers used to amplify the ribosomal ITS region for subsequent 454 pyrosequencing. Sequences are deposited in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (study accession SRP068654). Funding was provided by the NERC grants NE/H014098/1, NE/H014772/1 and NE/H01408X/1.

Adventdalen is a medium-sized (513 km2) catchment in continuous permafrost zone of central Spitsbergen. It has 11.7 % glacier cover, a large flat valley floor comprised of uplifted, glaciomarine sediments, covered in the lower part by a veneer of aeolian sediments up to 4 m thick. The geology of the catchment is dominated by sandstones, shales and carbonates. Freshwater samples were collected typically every second day throughout the principal runoff season (late May until early September) during 2015 and 2016 from a downstream site located at the head of the delta. Analysis of major ions (by ion chromatography) and minor constituents (trace metals by icpms and silica by colorimetric analysis). Funding was provided by the NERC grant NE/M019829/1.

In 1991 a nitrogen x phosphorus fertilisation experiment on dwarf shrub tundra close to Ny-Alesund, Svalbard was established. Treatments (0, 10, 50 kg N ha-1 yr-1; 0, 5 kg P ha-1 yr-1) were applied to Cassiope heath for 3 years and Dryas heath for 8 years. In 2011 the experiment was revisited to investigate the persistence of effects of fertilisation on species composition, vegetation nutrient status and ecosystem carbon stocks. The whole experiment has been led by Dr Sarah Woodin and colleagues, University of Aberdeen. The 2011 study, for which data are provided, was undertaken by Dr Lorna Street. Funded was provided by the NERC grant NE/I016899/1

These data are (1) porewater extractions of cores of the permafrost and active layer of Adventdalen, Svalbard, (2) solid-phase extractions of the same cores, and (3) in-situ porewater sampling from the end of the summer, 2017. The aqueous parameters are: major ions (Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, K+, Cl-, NO3-, SO42-), Fe(aq), Mn(aq), aqueous CH4 and CO2 concentrations, delta 13C- CH4, acetate, propionic acid, isobutyric acid, butyric acid, isovaleric acid, valeric acid, isocaproic acid, caproic acid, heptanoic acid, pH, oxidation-reduction potential, dissolved oxygen and alkalinity. The solid parameters are: organic carbon, nitrogen, acid volatile sulphur (AVS), chromium-reducible sulphur (CRS), amorphous and nanoparticulate iron (oxyhydr)oxides, crystalline iron (oxyhydr)oxides, iron bound in carbonates, and magnetite. Funding was provided by the NERC grant NE/M019829/1.