This is a compilation of OSPAR habitat point data for the northeast Atlantic submitted by OSPAR contracting parties. The compilation is coordinated by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee, working with a representative from each of the OSPAR coastal contracting parties. This public dataset does not contain records relating to sensitive species (e.g. Ostrea edulis) in specific areas, or where data are restricted from public release by the owner's use limitations. This version (v2020) was published in July 2021.

Excel file containing CPR data from Standard Areas B4,C3,C4,D3,D4,D5,E4,F4 for the plankton Calanus finmarchicus and helgolandicus, total traverse (small) copepods, total large copepods, Phytoplankton Colour Index and Cnidaria (presence denoted by a 1, absence by a zero). All taxa are from 1980, except Cnidaria which are from 2011. Dataset is in the format of sample level data, with each row being a discrete sample, with a sample being 3m3 filtered seawater, and 10nm of tow. For each row, a sample has the following information, starting at column a: Standard area of sample, sample id, latitude (decimal degrees) of sample mid point, longitude (decimal degrees) of sample midpoint, sample midpoint date and local time, year of sample, month of sample, then plankton abundance values (or PCI index or cnidaria presence/absence). All taxa have been looked for during the period this dataset spans, so zero values represent true absence.

NOAA High-resolution Blended Analysis of Daily SST and Ice. Data is from Sep 1981 and is on a 1/4 deg global grid.

The development of the ecosystem approach and models for the management of ocean marine resources requires easy access to standard validated datasets of historical catch data for the main exploited species. They are used to measure the impact of biomass removal by fisheries and to evaluate the models skills, while the use of standard dataset facilitates models inter-comparison. North Atlantic albacore tuna is exploited all year round by longline and in summer and autumn by surface fisheries and fishery statistics compiled by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). Catch and effort with geographical coordinates at monthly spatial resolution of 1° or 5° squares were extracted for this species with a careful definition of fisheries and data screening. In total, thirteen fisheries were defined for the period 1956-2010, with fishing gears longline, troll, mid-water trawl and bait fishing. However, the spatialized catch effort data available in ICCAT database represent a fraction of the entire total catch. Length frequencies of catch were also extracted according to the definition of fisheries above for the period 1956-2010 with a quarterly temporal resolution and spatial resolutions varying from 1°x 1° to 10°x 20°. The resolution used to measure the fish also varies with size-bins of 1, 2 or 5 cm (Fork Length). The screening of data allowed detecting inconsistencies with a relatively large number of samples larger than 150 cm while all studies on the growth of albacore suggest that fish rarely grow up over 130 cm. Therefore, a threshold value of 130 cm has been arbitrarily fixed and all length frequency data above this value removed from the original data set.

This dataset containing traits of marine fish is based on fish taxa observed during international scientific bottom-trawl surveys regularly conducted in the Northeast Atlantic, Northwest Atlantic and the Northeast Pacific. These scientific surveys target primarily demersal (bottom-dwelling) fish species, but pelagic species are also regularly recorded. The overarching aim of this dataset was to collect information on ecological traits for as many fish taxa as possible and to find area-specific trait values to account for intraspecific variation in traits, especially for widely distributed species. We collected traits for species, genera and families. The majority of trait values were sourced from FishBase (Froese and Pauly, 2019), and have been supplemented with values from the primary literature.

In August 2008, the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC), an office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), developed the ETOPO1 Global Relief Model as an improvement to the ETOPO2v2 Global Relief Model. ETOPO1 is available in "Ice Surface" (top of Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets) and "Bedrock" (base of the ice sheets) versions. Both versions of ETOPO1 were generated from diverse global and regional digital data sets, which were shifted to common horizontal and vertical datums, and then evaluated and edited as needed. Bathymetric, topographic, and shoreline data used in ETOPO1 were obtained from NGDC, Antarctic Digital Database (ADD), European Ice Sheet Modeling Initiative (EISMINT), Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), Japan Oceanographic Data Center (JODC), Caspian Environment Programme (CEP), Mediterranean Science Commission (CIESM), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SIO), and Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research (LIBSR). ETOPO1 is vertically referenced to sea level, and horizontally referenced to the World Geodetic System of 1984 (WGS 84). Cell size for ETOPO1 is 1 arc-minute.

These data consist of raw echosounder observations collected during ACE (Leg1-Leg3) using an EK80 WBT operating at 12.5 kHz. The instrument was calibrated at South Georgia during the expedition (Leg 3) and corrections were applied prior to calculation of the volume backscattering strength (Sv). The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was analysed and was deemed very poor at depths greater than 1000 m. Therefore, only data collected between the transducer depth (8.4 m) and 1000 m were archived. Sv values within this depth range that had poor SNRs (<2) were deemed to be bad data and set to a value of NA. Observations were made using a pulse duration of 16.384 ms (c. 24 m) and are therefore not suitable for fine-scale studies (e.g. analysis of krill swarms). They are more suited to studies relating to large-scale biological features such as deep scattering layers.

M2TMNXAER (or tavgM_2d_aer_Nx) is a time-averaged 2-dimensional monthly mean data collection in Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2). This collection consists of assimilated aerosol diagnostics, such as column mass density of aerosol components (black carbon, dust, sea salt, sulfate, and organic carbon), surface mass concentration of aerosol components, and total extinction (and scattering ) aerosol optical thickness (AOT) at 550 nm. The total PM1.0, PM2.5, and PM10 may be derived with the formula described in the FAQs under the Documentation tab of this page. The collection also includes variance of certain parameters. MERRA-2 is the latest version of global atmospheric reanalysis for the satellite era produced by NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4. The dataset covers the period of 1980-present with the latency of ~3 weeks after the end of a month.

SEAPOP (SEAbird POPulations) is a long-term monitoring and mapping programme for Norwegian seabirds that was established in 2005. The programme covers seabird populations in Norway, Svalbard and adjacent sea areas, and will provide and maintain base-line knowledge of seabirds for an improved management of this marine environment. The data analyses aim to develop further models of seabird distribution and population dynamics using different environmental parameters, and to explore the degree of covariation across different sites and species. This knowledge is urgently needed to distinguish human influences from those caused by natural variation.

The Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (TF HTAP) is an international scientific cooperative effort to improve the understanding of the intercontinental transport of air pollution across the Northern Hemisphere. TF HTAP was organized in 2005 under the auspices of the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP Convention) and reports to the Convention’s EMEP Steering Body. However, participation is open to all interested experts, both inside and outside the UNECE region. TF HTAP organizes scientific cooperation in the areas of emissions inventories and projections, analysis of ambient monitoring and remote sensing, global and regional modeling, and impact assessment to understand the intercontinental flows of ozone and its precursors, fine particles and their components, mercury, and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The main questions of interest to the TF HTAP relate to the benefits of international cooperation to decrease air pollution emissions: - How do air pollution concentrations (or deposition) in one region of the world change as emissions change in other regions or the world? - How do changes in emissions outside a region affect the health, ecosystem, and climate impacts of air pollution within a given region? - How does the feasibility of further emissions control differ in different regions of the world?