The dataset includes full-depth hydrographic profiles and current data collected by acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs). Water samples were collected and analysed for salinity, inorganic nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon), organic nitrogen and phosphorus components, dissolved organic carbon and alkalinity. Measurements of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) and helium/tritium tracers were also collected to identify ages of water masses. These core observations were supplemented by measurements made by tied PhD students: measurements of Dissolved Organic Nitrogen (DON) and Dissolved Organic Phosphorus (DOP); isotopic nitrogen signatures; atmospheric deposition of nitrogen and phosphorus; measurements of dissolved organic carbon and dissolved oxygen; and plankton respiration rates. These measurements were taken on the RRS Charles Darwin across the North Atlantic, departing from Bermuda on 1 May 2005 and arriving in Lisbon on 15 June 2005. Data were collected via a number of conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) casts and continuous underway measurements. The study aimed to examine why ocean temperatures are rising within the tropics and mid-latitudes of the North Atlantic but decreasing at high latitudes. Investigators: National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS): Elaine McDonagh, Brian King, Harry Bryden, Richard Sanders, Paula Mcleod . University of Liverpool: Ric Williams, George Wolff, Rhiannon Mather, Susan Leadbetter. University of East Anglia: Carol Robinson, Andy Watson, Tim Jickells, Ute Schuster. Proudman Oceanography Laboratory: Clare Postlethwaite.

The data set contains a variety of physical, chemical and biological parameters. Hydrographic profiles provided temperature, salinity, fluorescence, dissolved oxygen and transmissance measurements, which were supplemented by time series of surface ocean and meteorological properties. Time series of current velocities, temperature and sea level were also collected. Biogeochemical and biological analyses of water samples provided nutrient, phytoplankton and zooplankton data, while production data were derived from incubation experiments. The data were collected at seven stations in the Celtic Sea with varying physical and biological characteristics. Fieldwork was undertaken between 15th and 29th May 2000, with each station being occupied for 24 hours. Data were collected via shipboard deployment of CTD profilers and undulators with accompanying auxiliary sensors, and discrete water sampling. Further data were obtained from three moorings including acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs), temperature recorders and bottom pressure recorders that were also deployed and recovered during the study period. Measurements were collected during RRS Discovery cruise D246 as part of the multidisciplinary study of the interactions between physical processes and biological production in contrasting pelagic shelf waters. An additional goal of the study was to map the tidal front situated in the St George's Channel. The study was co-ordinated by Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the research involved 28 scientists and technicians from 14 separate institutions situated in five different countries. Data are managed by the British Oceanographic Data Centre.

The Marine Environment Monitoring and Assessment National database (MERMAN) is a national database which holds and provides access to data collected under the Clean Safe Seas Environmental Monitoring Programme (CSEMP) formerly the National Marine Monitoring Programme (NMMP). The data collected are the responsibility of the Competent Monitoring Authorities (CMAs) who collect the samples from stations in UK waters using water sampling techniques, trawls, nets or grabs. The CMAs then send the collected samples to accredited laboratories where they are analysed. A weighting is calculated, based on the quality of the analysis. The weighting score incorporates the laboratory accreditation, reference material, inter-laboratory comparisons, detection limits, uncertainties and standard deviations. Where data do not meet a threshold score they are given a status of ‘FAIL’ and although they are stored they are not made available to external users. The MERMAN contaminants, nutrients, biological and eutrophication effects in water data start in 1999. Data are submitted by the CMAs annually and an annual submission may include updates to legacy data to provide additional data or improve data/metadata. The data held in MERMAN fulfils the UK's mandatory monitoring requirements under the Oslo and Paris Convention (OSPAR) Joint Assessments and Monitoring Programme (JAMP). These data are used in support of European Commission (EC) directives and national assessments, such as Charting Progress 2 and are also supplied to the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODNET).

The dataset comprises physical, biogeochemical and biological measurements from the Southern Ocean. The data were collected in the Bransfield and Gerlache Straits and Bellingshausen Sea between 1995 and 1996. Hydrographic casts provided profiles of temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, transmittance, chlorophyll and photosynthetically active radiation, while water samples were analysed for bacteria, zooplankton and a biogeochemical parameters such as nutrient concentrations. Sediment cores were also analysed for nutrients, while drifting traps provided sedimentation flux measurements and shipboard experiments yielded production data. The majority of measurements were collected during two consecutive cruises of the BIO Hesperides between early December 1995 and early February 1996. The hydrographic profiles were collected using a CTD and the data were stored as approximately 300 individual ASCII files per cruise, with data stored at 1dbar resolution. Several hundred discrete measurements (water samples and sediment cores) were collected in total. An array of moorings deployed for one year in the Western Bransfield Strait Basin provided sediment trap samples for biological and biogeochemical analysis. The FRUELA project was part of the Spanish contribution to the study of biogeochemical carbon fluxes in the Southern Ocean. Three major zones, with contrasting physico-chemical and biological characteristics were considered: Bellingshausen, including the Northwest Bellingshausen Sea and comprising the southern boundary of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (SbyACC); Bransfield, including the Western Bransfield Strait and the northeastern part of the Gerlache Strait; and Gerlache, including the rest of the Gerlache Strait. The research involved a number of Spanish institutions and was coordinated by the University of Oviedo and the Institute of Marine Sciences (CSIC). The data are held by the British Oceanographic Data Centre.

The Ocean Surface Mixing, Ocean Sub-mesoscale Interaction Study (OSMOSIS) data set contains a variety of oceanographic measurements including a year long time series of the properties of the ocean surface boundary layer and its controlling 3D physical processes. The core observations include measurements of temperature, salinity, nutrients, currents and shear harvested from a suite of instrumentation including CTDs, ocean gliders, drifter buoys and moored sensors. OSMOSIS data were collected during three cruises. The first cruise undertook preliminary exploratory work in the Clyde Sea (September 2011) to hone techniques and strategies. The following cruises carried out mooring deployments and recovery in the vicinity of the Porcupine Abyssal Plain (PAP) observatory (in late Summer 2012 and 2013 respectively). Additional opportunist ship time being factored in to support the ambitious glider operations associated with OSMOSIS. This multiple year study will combine traditional observational techniques, such as moorings and CTDs, with the latest autonomous sampling technologies (including ocean gliders), capable of delivering near real-time scientific measurements through the water column. The OSMOSIS data set will contain high-resolution vertical measurements, which will shed light on the complex turbulent processes that drive the deepening of the OSBL and similarly the sub-mesoscale processes promoting OSBL re-stratification. Continuous mooring and glider measurements over a complete annual cycle will also provide invaluable insight into how the OSBL evolves over time. The NERC OSMOSIS Consortium brings together scientists from various UK research centres including the University of Southampton School of Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Reading, Bangor and the National Oceanography Centre (NOC).

This dataset comprises the following water body parameters: pressure; density; salinity; temperature; fluorescence; oxygen; dissolved inorganic nutrients; dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC); particulate carbon (PC); particulate organic carbon (POC); particulate nitrogen (PN); alkalinity; pH; chlorophyll; photosynthetically active radiation (PAR); delta 15 N isotopic composition of PN and nitrate; delta 13 C isotopic composition of POC; delta 18 O isotopic composition of nitrate; ratio of oxygen isotopes. This dataset also includes dissolved inorganic nutrients in sediment pore water, and major and minor element concentrations in sediment. Data were sampled on the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), more specifically in Ryder and Marguerite Bays. Measurements were obtained from either in situ sensors, samples collected by box coring, or by Niskin bottles mounted on the CTD rosette of RRS James Clark Ross during cruises JR20141231 (JR307, JR308) and JR15003 which took place from 31 December 2014 to 07 January 2015 and from 17 December 2015 to 13 January 2016 respectively. Samples were also collected from Niskin bottles deployed with a hand-cranked winch or 12 V electric bilge pump from a rigid-hulled inflatable boat between 16 November 2013 and 21 March 2016. Sediment samples were analysed for major and minor element composition by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy at the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh. This research project aimed to examine the ways in which ongoing climate change and sea ice decline at the WAP impact upon nutrient budgets and biogeochemical cycling throughout the region, and to trace the movement and modification of circumpolar deep water across the WAP shelf and its influence on macronutrient and inorganic carbon supply to productive coastal regions. Data were generated by Sian Henley (University of Edinburgh), Hugh Venables and Michael Meredith (British Antarctic Survey), Elizabeth Jones (University of Groningen), Katharine Hendry (University of Bristol), and Yvonne Firing (NOC Southampton), with funding from NERC Independent Research Fellowship (NE/K010034/1), the University of Edinburgh School of Geosciences, the British Antarctic Survey Polar Oceans Program, the Netherlands Polar Program (NOW), British Antarctic Survey CGS-109, and NERC NC Funding for SR1b repeat transect (PI Firing). Additional contributors to the dataset were Malcolm Woodward (Plymouth Marine Laboratory), Melanie Leng (British Geological Survey) and Colin Chilcott and Nicholas Odling (University of Edinburgh).

The dataset contains physical, biological and chemical oceanographic measurements, and meteorological data. Hydrographic measurements include temperature, salinity, attenuance and backscatter, pH and dissolved oxygen concentrations, while water samples were analysed for concentrations of carbon, nitrogen, hydrocarbons, nutrients and pigments. Samples were also collected for phytoplankton and zooplankton analyses, while results from production experiments are also included in the data set. These oceanographic data are supplemented by surface meteorological measurements. Measurements were taken at sites in the Bellinghausen Sea as part of a 2-ship Eulerian experiment between the 28th of October and the 17th of December 1992. The data were collected via (i) underway sampling (SeaSoar Undulating Oceanographic Recorder (UOR), lightfish, hull-mounted acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP), meteorology and surface ocean parameters) of which there are 121179 records and (ii) discrete sampling (conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) and expendable bathythermograph (XBT) casts, bottle stations, net hauls, productivity incubations) of which there are over 1000 deployments and experiments. The study aimed to measure the magnitude and variability of carbon and nitrogen fluxes during early summer in the Southern Ocean, with particular emphasis on rates and processes in the marginal ice zone. The data were collected and supplied by UK participants in the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS). The British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) are responsible for calibrating, processing, quality controlling and documenting the data and assembling the final data set. Underway data are stored as 1 minute interval time series for each cruise with all parameters merged on date/time. The data are fully quality controlled; checks were made for instrument malfunction, fouling, constancy, spikes, spurious values, calibration errors, baseline and salt-water corrections. The discrete data are stored in a relational database (Oracle RDBMS), chiefly as vertical profiles and are uniquely identified by a combination of deployment number and depth.

The data set comprises hydrographic and biogeochemical and biological measurements including temperature, salinity, currents, chlorophyll, dissolved organic and inorganic carbon and nitrogen, suspended matter concentrations, nutrients, plankton and fish. The results of primary production experiments are also included. The data were collected from the Bristol Channel, Severn Estuary, Celtic Sea and Plymouth Sound between 1971 and 1983. Measurements were taken over a series of more than 100 cruises, many with more than 50 stations. The most intensive sampling took place before 1975. The original data were collated and stored at Institute for Marine Environmental Research (IMER), which became Plymouth Marine Laboratory in 1988. As this is a large and important data set, which was previously held in an inaccessible format, it was selected for long-term archival at BODC as part of the NERC SEEDCORN programme. The data have been extracted, loaded into a relational database and are available on CD-ROM.

The dataset comprises physical, biogeochemical and biological oceanographic, surface meteorological and benthic measurements. Hydrographic profiles including temperature, salinity, fluorescence, transmissance and suspended sediment concentration were collected at numerous stations, while surface hydrographic (fluorescence, transmissance, sea surface temperature, salinity) and meteorological (irradiance, air temperature, humidity, wind speed/direction) data were collected across the survey areas. Sediment, pore water and water column samples were also collected for biogeochemical analysis, as were biological samples for the purposes of species classification and abundance analyses. The data were collected across the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and Pakistan margin areas between March and October 2003. Data collection was undertaken by the RRS Charles Darwin during four cruises: CD145 (12 March 2003 to 9 April 2003), CD146 (12 April 2003 to 30 May 2003), CD150 (22 August 2003 to 15 September 2003) and CD151 (17 September 2003 to 20 October 2003). Conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) profilers with auxiliary sensors, benthic samplers and nets were deployed from the ship, while underway sensors provided continuous surface ocean, meteorological and bathymetric data. The study was designed to investigate an oxygen-minimum zone (OMZ) in the northern Arabian Sea. Chief Investigators include Gregory L Cowie (University of Edinburgh School of GeoSciences) and Brian J Bett (Southampton Oceanography Centre), while other institutions including the Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory, University of Liverpool and Netherlands Institute of Ecology were also involved in the research. Data management is being undertaken by BODC. Some of the data are still undergoing processing at BODC and further data are expected from originators in the future.

The Changing Arctic Ocean (CAO) oceanographic dataset comprises data collected in the Arctic Ocean, including the Barents Sea and Fram Strait, as part of the Changing Arctic Ocean programme. The data were collected over multiple research cruises starting in June 2017. The majority of these cruises were conducted during the Arctic summer on board the RRS James Clark Ross, with further winter cruises completed in collaboration with the Nansen Legacy project on board the RV Helmer Hanssen. Shipboard data collection included the deployment of conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) packages, ocean seagliders, mulitcorers, grabs, nets, trawls, and a shelf underwater camera system. The CAO programme aims to understand the changes in Arctic marine ecosystem in a quantifiable way, enabling computer models to help predict the consequences of these changes on, for example; surface ocean productivity; species distributions; food webs; and ecosystems, and the services they provide (ecosystem services). It was initially a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded programme comprising four projects: Arctic PRIZE (Arctic productivity in the seasonal ice zone), led by Finlo Cottier (Scottish Association for Marine Science - SAMS); ARISE (Can we detect changes in Arctic ecosystems?), led by Claire Mahaffey (University of Liverpool); ChAOS (The Changing Arctic Ocean Seafloor), led by Christian Maerz (University of Leeds) and DIAPOD (Mechanistic understanding of the role of diatoms in the success of the Arctic Calanus complex and implications for a warmer Arctic), led by David Pond (University of Stirling). Additional projects were added to the programme in July 2018 through funding provided by NERC and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The majority of data are held by the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) but a proportion of the data, primarily biological, are stored at the British Antarctic Survey Polar Data Centre (polardatacentre@bas.ac.uk) and any BMBF funded data are held by Pangaea (https://www.pangaea.de/).