The dataset comprises of proxy data from the Emerald Lake sediment record dating back to 12.1ka BP were extracted on Macquarie Island. Three independent methods to reconstruct past changes in Southern Hemisphere Westerly wind (SHW) intensity. Core scanning (ITRAX XRF) and multispectral data (SPECIM) originally published in Saunders et al. (2018) have been updated to the 2020 radiocarbon calibration curve. This research was funded by NERC Standard grant NE/K004514/1 (D.A.H., S.J.R., L.S.), Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione Postdoctoral Research Fellowship PZ00P2_136835/1 (K.M.S.), Swiss National Science Foundation Grant 200021_172586 (M.G.) and Australian Antarctic Science grants 3117 and 4156 (K.M.S.). K.M.S. was also supported by PhD funding as part of grant 2663 to A. McMinn, an Australian Postgraduate Award (2004-2008) and an Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering Postgraduate Research Award.

This database contains information on the herbarium specimens held in the herbarium of the British Antarctic Survey (international code AAS) as well as information about specimens collected in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic and held in other world herbaria. There are over 70 000 records, predominantly of mosses and lichens, but also of vascular plants, ferns, fungi and algae collected in Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions as well as some from surrounding continents, particularly South America. The collection from South Georgia And The South Sandwich Islands started in 1775 and from Antarctica in 1834. Documents relating to the Herbarium are kept in the BAS Archives (LS2/4). The records can be searched and downloaded on: http://apex.nerc-bas.ac.uk/f?p=148:1. There is also a facility to see a distribution map of specimens retrieved by querying the database.