QUEST projects both used and produced an immense variety of global data sets that needed to be shared efficiently between the project teams. These global synthesis data sets are also a key part of QUEST's legacy, providing a powerful way of communicating the results of QUEST among and beyond the UK Earth System research community. This dataset contains monthly climatology measurements for 1961-1990.

QUEST projects both used and produced an immense variety of global data sets that needed to be shared efficiently between the project teams. These global synthesis data sets are also a key part of QUEST's legacy, providing a powerful way of communicating the results of QUEST among and beyond the UK Earth System research community. This dataset contains decadal surface meteorology climatologies from CRU TS3.0 data 1901- 2000. Data includes parameters such as temperature, water vapour and precipitation.

The QUEST-GSI WPd1 "Climate scenarios". The aim was to construct climate scenarios representing the effects of uncertainty and different rates of climate forcing. This dataset contains model data which construct climate scenarios. The project requires climate scenarios which (a) characterise the uncertainty in the climate change associated with a given forcing, including changes in climate variability and extreme events, and (b) allow the construction of generalised relationships between climate forcing and impact.

QUEST projects both used and produced an immense variety of global data sets that needed to be shared efficiently between the project teams. These global synthesis data sets are also a key part of QUEST's legacy, providing a powerful way of communicating the results of QUEST among and beyond the UK Earth System research community. This dataset contains 30 year surface meteorology climatologies from CRU TS3.0 data. Data includes parameters such as temperature, water vapour and precipitation.

QUEST projects both used and produced an immense variety of global data sets that needed to be shared efficiently between the project teams. These global synthesis data sets are also a key part of QUEST's legacy, providing a powerful way of communicating the results of QUEST among and beyond the UK Earth System research community. This dataset contains global Population Distribution (1990), Terrestrial Area and Country Name Information on a One by One Degree Grid Cell Basis.

QUEST projects both used and produced an immense variety of global data sets that needed to be shared efficiently between the project teams. These global synthesis data sets are also a key part of QUEST's legacy, providing a powerful way of communicating the results of QUEST among and beyond the UK Earth System research community. This dataset contains socio-economic scenarios from the IPCC SRES report.

The QUEST-GSI WP-I5 "Aquatic Ecosystems" project provided an analysis of global fisheries vulnerability across a range of global climate models, emissions scenarios, fixed degree scenarios and alternative impact metrics. This dataset contains model output data from the emission, fixed degree, Cheung potential analysis, Allison socio-economic comparison and freshwater run-off analysis scenarios. -Emission Scenarios- These results are from the analysis using the SRES emissions scenarios from the IPCC AR4 - A1b, A2, B1 and B2. -Fixed Degree- This analysis was driven by the fixed degree rise scenarios, corresponding to a fixed increase in global temperature by 2050. These are 1 to 4 degrees C, in half degree increments, with each fishery impact equally weighted across freshwater, EEZ and High Seas (see report). They are also carried out for a variety of GCMs and socio-economic scenarios. -Cheung Potential Catch Analysis- These results were generated for marine fisheries using an alternative metric to temperature change in calculating potential impact- that of predicted change in potential catch from the study carried out by W.W.L. Cheung et al. (2009 Large-scale redistribution of maximum fisheries catch potential in the global ocean under climate change. Global Change Biology 16, 24-35). This was carried out for the A1b SRES scenario using the GFDL CM2.1 global climate model. -Allison Socio-economic comparison- A comparison study using the adaptive capacity metric developed in Allison et al. (2009 Vulnerability of national economies to the impacts of climate change on fisheries. Fish and Fisheries 10, 173–196). This was undertaken for the A1b Emission Scenario using HadCM3. -Freshwater Runoff Analysis- Using predicted changes in freshwater availability from the outputs of QUEST-GSI WP-I1 global water resources project, an alternative analysis for freshwater fisheries vulnerability was carried out. This was under the 2 degrees fixed increase scenario using HadCM3.

This dataset represent hydrological statistics calculated over a 30‐year period, at a spatial resolution (over land) of 0.5x0.5o across the global domain. The simulations were made using the global hydrological model Mac‐PDM.09. The data files represent runoff simulated with the baseline (1961‐1990) climate, together with runoff simulated by climate change scenarios derived from CMIP3 global climate model output (i) based on specific IPCC SRES emissions scenarios (“SRES”) and (ii) scaled to represent prescribed changes in global mean temperature (“PRESC”), and from CMIP5 global climate model output based on RCP scenarios. The simulations were run at the University of Reading between 2009 and 2013. See Gosling & Arnell (2011)mfor a description and validation of Mac‐PDM.09, and Arnell & Gosling (2013) for details of the CMIP3 climate change scenarios and their application to the simulation of river runoff. Arnell & Lloyd‐Hughes (2013) describe the application of the model with CMIP5 scenarios.

PalaeoQUMP was headed by Prof Sandy Harrison of the University of Bristol, with co-investigators at the University of Southampton and Durham University, as part of QUEST (Quantifying and Understanding the Earth System). This dataset collection contains data from charcoal records that have been compiled for the Mediterranean, Black Sea-Caspian and Sea corridor region. PalaeoQUMP aimed to constrain climate sensitivity by using a wider range of derived climate observations from the geological past (reconstructions from sediments and geomorphological changes for the Last Glacial Maximum and the mid-Holocene period), to evaluate climate model predictions generated using the same series of simulations as QUMP produced for the modern climate. The mid-Holocene and LGM climate reconstructions have been completed, with input from the PMIP Quantitative Reconstruction working group. Robust patterns evident in the data sets are being used as benchmarks and targets for the IPCC AR5 palaeoclimate simulations. The team has also produced the first coupled model (AOGCM) perturbed physics ensemble simulations of the MH and LGM. However the objective of using this data for an improved understanding of past climate to better constrain climate sensitivity has not yet been fully achieved.

QUEST GSI was led by Nigel Arnell (University of Reading) with co-investigators from the Universities of Aberdeen, Leeds, UEA, Edinburgh, Southampton, UCL, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, CEH and CEFAS. This dataset collection contains model data simulations under various climate, run-off and aquatic scenarios. A central aim of this project was to assess the global-scale impacts of climate change under a range of scenarios, across a number of sectors. A methodology was developed to construct scenarios from a range of climate models, representing changes under different emissions scenarios and fixed amounts of change in global mean temperature. Impacts were estimated across a range of sectors, including water resources, fluvial and coastal flooding, crop productivity and food security, ecosystem productivity and human health, at regional and global scales. The project has provided quantitative information on these impacts and their distribution across the world. The general conclusions are that impacts may be significant at relatively low levels of climate change, that estimates of impact in some sectors are very uncertain due largely to uncertainty in projected changes in rainfall (particularly in south Asia), that there are no obvious thresholds for step changes in impact that are consistent across region and sector, and that socio-economic conditions may amplify or reduce impacts, depending on context. A second project aim was to develop the methodology in such a way that it could be readily applied to estimate impacts under other climate scenarios representing for example specific policy objectives. With additional funding from other sources, the project methodology has been applied successfully to estimate the impacts avoided by a set of feasible emissions policies.