DESIRE (Dynamics of the Earth System and the Ice-Core Record) was part of QUEST (Quantifying and Understanding the Earth System) Theme 2. This dataset contains measurements of chemical traces and meteorological from the TOMCAT (Tropospheric Offline Model of Chemistry and Transport model), as part of the Work Package 1.3. The aim of this work package was to identify any atmospheric chemical signal preserved in the ice-core record that could be used to differentiate between the influences on atmospheric methane of changes in methane emissions and changes in oxidising capacity between the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the pre-industrial era (PI). A series of experiments was carried out using the Cambridge parallelised-Tropospheric Offline Model of Chemistry and Transport (p-TOMCAT; v2.0 beta), the results to which are contained in this dataset.

DESIRE (Dynamics of the Earth System and the Ice-Core Record) was part of Theme 2 QUEST (Quantifying and Understanding the Earth System) programme. This dataset collection contains chemical traces, sea conditions and meteorological measurements from the Tropospheric Offline Model of Chemistry and Transport (TOMCAT) model and MITgcm (MIT General Circulation Model). The project involved an Anglo-French collaboration between QUEST and INSU (Institut national des sciences de l'univers). The project responded to a call to “explain the major changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentration over glacial-interglacial timescales”. The project had three strands. In the first strand, tools to improve understanding and modelling of methane were worked on; this included improvements to models, as well as new constraining datasets. In the second strand, similar improvements for CO2 were to be made. The third strand included model simulations and a major data compilation covering the 800,000 year ice core period. Much of the early research in this project used the simple Earth system model GENIE, which generally yields robust results. For example, CO2-forced transient simulations over 650,000 years reproduced Antarctic temperature anomalies with a high correlation, broadly capturing the QUEST Final Report, June 2011 22 magnitude of glacial-interglacial temperature changes. This study found that warm peaks in interglacials are consistent with changes in the meridional overturning circulation.

DESIRE (Dynamics of the Earth System and the Ice-Core Record) was part of QUEST (Quantifying and Understanding the Earth System) Theme 2. This dataset contains measurements of sea temperature, salinity and elevation from the MITgcm (MIT General Circulation Model) model, as part of the Work Package 2.3. These experiments were conducted to investigate the role of changing the vertical tracer diffusivity on Drake Passage Transport (DPT) and the meridional overturning circulation (MOC).