'''DEFINITION''' Significant wave height (SWH), expressed in metres, is the average height of the highest third of waves. This OMI provides global maps of the seasonal mean and trend of significant wave height (SWH), as well as time series in three oceanic regions of the same variables and their trends from 2002 to 2020, calculated from the reprocessed global L4 SWH product (WAVE_GLO_PHY_SWH_L4_MY_014_007). The extreme SWH is defined as the 95th percentile of the daily maximum SWH for the selected period and region. The 95th percentile is the value below which 95% of the data points fall, indicating higher than normal wave heights. The mean and 95th percentile of SWH (in m) are calculated for two seasons of the year to take into account the seasonal variability of waves (January, February and March, and July, August and September). Trends have been obtained using linear regression and are expressed in cm/yr. For the time series, the uncertainty around the trend was obtained from the linear regression, while the uncertainty around the mean and 95th percentile was bootstrapped. For the maps, if the p-value obtained from the linear regression is less than 0.05, the trend is considered significant. '''CONTEXT''' Grasping the nature of global ocean surface waves, their variability, and their long-term interannual shifts is essential for climate research and diverse oceanic and coastal applications. The sixth IPCC Assessment Report underscores the significant role waves play in extreme sea level events (Mentaschi et al., 2017), flooding (Storlazzi et al., 2018), and coastal erosion (Barnard et al., 2017). Additionally, waves impact ocean circulation and mediate interactions between air and sea (Donelan et al., 1997) as well as sea-ice interactions (Thomas et al., 2019). Studying these long-term and interannual changes demands precise time series data spanning several decades. Until now, such records have been available only from global model reanalyses or localised in situ observations. While buoy data are valuable, they offer limited local insights and are especially scarce in the southern hemisphere. In contrast, altimeters deliver global, high-quality measurements of significant wave heights (SWH) (Gommenginger et al., 2002). The growing satellite record of SWH now facilitates more extensive global and long-term analyses. By using SWH data from a multi-mission altimetric product from 2002 to 2020, we can calculate global mean SWH and extreme SWH and evaluate their trends, regionally and globally. '''KEY FINDINGS''' From 2002 to 2020, positive trends in both Significant Wave Height (SWH) and extreme SWH are mostly found in the southern hemisphere (a, b). The 95th percentile of wave heights (q95), increases faster than the average values, indicating that extreme waves are growing more rapidly than average wave height (a, b). Extreme SWH’s global maps highlight heavily storms affected regions, including the western North Pacific, the North Atlantic and the eastern tropical Pacific (a). In the North Atlantic, SWH has increased in summertime (July August September) but decreased in winter. Specifically, the 95th percentile SWH trend is decreasing by 2.1 ± 3.3 cm/year, while the mean SWH shows a decrease of 2.2 ± 1.76 cm/year. In the south of Australia, during boreal winter, the 95th percentile SWH is increasing at 2.6 ± 1.5 cm/year (c), with the mean SWH increasing by 0.5 ± 0.66 cm/year (d). Finally, in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, also in boreal winter, the 95th percentile SWH trend is 3.2 ± 2.14 cm/year (c) and the mean SWH trend is 1.7 ± 0.84 cm/year (d). These patterns highlight the complex and region-specific nature of wave height trends. Further discussion is available in A. Laloue et al. (2024). '''DOI (product):''' https://doi.org/10.48670/mds-00352

This visualization product displays the total abundance of marine macro-litter (> 2.5cm) per beach per year from Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) monitoring surveys. EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of beach litter have been gathered and processed in the EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database (MLDB). The harmonization of all the data has been the most challenging task considering the heterogeneity of the data sources, sampling protocols and reference lists used on a European scale. Preliminary processings were necessary to harmonize all the data: - Exclusion of OSPAR 1000 protocol: in order to follow the approach of OSPAR that it is not including these data anymore in the monitoring; - Selection of MSFD surveys only (exclusion of other monitoring, cleaning and research operations); - Exclusion of beaches without coordinates; - Some categories & some litter types like organic litter, small fragments (paraffin and wax; items > 2.5cm) and pollutants have been removed. The list of selected items is attached to this metadata. This list was created using EU Marine Beach Litter Baselines, the European Threshold Value for Macro Litter on Coastlines and the Joint list of litter categories for marine macro-litter monitoring from JRC (these three documents are attached to this metadata); - Normalization of survey lengths to 100m & 1 survey / year: in some cases, the survey length was not exactly 100m, so in order to be able to compare the abundance of litter from different beaches a normalization is applied using this formula: Number of items (normalized by 100 m) = Number of litter per items x (100 / survey length) Then, this normalized number of items is summed to obtain the total normalized number of litter for each survey. Finally, the median abundance for each beach and year is calculated from these normalized abundances per survey. Sometimes the survey length was null or equal to 0. Assuming that the MSFD protocol has been applied, the length has been set at 100m in these cases. Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account MSFD data for all years. More information is available in the attached documents. Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that it does not exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.

This visualization product displays the cigarette related items abundance of marine macro-litter (> 2.5cm) per beach per year from non-MSFD monitoring surveys, research & cleaning operations without UNEP-MARLIN data. EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of beach litter have been gathered and processed in the EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database (MLDB). The harmonization of all the data has been the most challenging task considering the heterogeneity of the data sources, sampling protocols and reference lists used on a European scale. Preliminary processings were necessary to harmonize all the data: - Exclusion of OSPAR 1000 protocol: in order to follow the approach of OSPAR that it is not including these data anymore in the monitoring; - Selection of surveys from non-MSFD monitoring, cleaning and research operations; - Exclusion of beaches without coordinates; - Selection of cigarette related items only. The list of selected items is attached to this metadata. This list was created using EU Marine Beach Litter Baselines, the European Threshold Value for Macro Litter on Coastlines and the Joint list of litter categories for marine macro-litter monitoring from JRC (these three documents are attached to this metadata); - Exclusion of surveys without associated length; - Exclusion of surveys referring to the UNEP-MARLIN list: the UNEP-MARLIN protocol differs from the other types of monitoring in that cigarette butts are surveyed in a 10m square. To avoid comparing abundances from very different protocols, the choice has been made to distinguish in two maps the cigarette related items results associated with the UNEP-MARLIN list from the others; - Normalization of survey lengths to 100m & 1 survey / year: in some case, the survey length was not 100m, so in order to be able to compare the abundance of litter from different beaches a normalization is applied using this formula: Number of cigarette related items of the survey (normalized by 100 m) = Number of cigarette related items of the survey x (100 / survey length) Then, this normalized number of cigarette related items is summed to obtain the total normalized number of cigarette related items for each survey. Finally, the median abundance of cigarette related items for each beach and year is calculated from these normalized abundances of cigarette related items per survey. Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account cigarette related items from other sources data (excluding UNEP-MARLIN protocol) for all years. More information is available in the attached documents. Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that they do not exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.

This visualization product displays the cigarette related items abundance of marine macro-litter (> 2.5cm) per beach per year from non-MSFD monitoring surveys, research & cleaning operations without UNEP-MARLIN data. EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of beach litter have been gathered and processed in the EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database (MLDB). The harmonization of all the data has been the most challenging task considering the heterogeneity of the data sources, sampling protocols and reference lists used on a European scale. Preliminary processings were necessary to harmonize all the data: - Exclusion of OSPAR 1000 protocol: in order to follow the approach of OSPAR that it is not including these data anymore in the monitoring; - Selection of surveys from non-MSFD monitoring, cleaning and research operations; - Exclusion of beaches without coordinates; - Selection of plastic bags related items only. The list of selected items is attached to this metadata. This list was created using EU Marine Beach Litter Baselines, the European Threshold Value for Macro Litter on Coastlines and the Joint list of litter categories for marine macro-litter monitoring from JRC (these three documents are attached to this metadata); - Exclusion of surveys without associated length; - Normalization of survey lengths to 100m & 1 survey / year: in some case, the survey length was not 100m, so in order to be able to compare the abundance of litter from different beaches a normalization is applied using this formula: Number of plastic bags related items of the survey (normalized by 100 m) = Number of plastic bags related items of the survey x (100 / survey length) Then, this normalized number of plastic bags related items is summed to obtain the total normalized number of plastic bags related items for each survey. Finally, the median abundance of plastic bags related items for each beach and year is calculated from these normalized abundances of plastic bags related items per survey. Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account plastic bags related items from other sources data for all years. More information is available in the attached documents. Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that they do not exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.

This visualization product displays the density of floating micro-litter per net normalized per m³ per year from research and monitoring protocols. EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Before 2021, there was no coordinated effort at the regional or European scale for micro-litter. Given this situation, EMODnet Chemistry proposed to adopt the data gathering and data management approach as generally applied for marine data, i.e., populating metadata and data in the CDI Data Discovery and Access service using dedicated SeaDataNet data transport formats. EMODnet Chemistry is currently the official EU collector of micro-litter data from Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) National Monitoring activities (descriptor 10). A series of specific standard vocabularies or standard terms related to micro-litter have been added to SeaDataNet NVS (NERC Vocabulary Server) Common Vocabularies to describe the micro-litter. European micro-litter data are collected by the National Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs). Micro-litter map products are generated from NODCs data after a test of the aggregated collection including data and data format checks and data harmonization. A filter is applied to represent only micro-litter sampled according to research and monitoring protocols as MSFD monitoring. Densities were calculated for each net using the following calculation: Density (number of particles per m³) = Micro-litter count / Sampling effort (m³) When the number of micro-litters was not filled, it was not possible to calculate the density. Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account data for all years. Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that they do not exist, but that no information has been entered in the National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) for this area.

EMODnet Chemistry aims to provide access to marine chemistry data sets and derived data products concerning eutrophication, ocean acidification, contaminants and litter. The chosen parameters are relevant for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), in particular for descriptors 5, 8, 9 and 10. The dataset contains standardized, harmonized and validated data collections from beach litter (monitoring and other sources). Datasets concerning beach and seafloor litter data are loaded in a central database after a semi-automated validation phase. Once loaded, a data assessment is performed in order to check data consistency and potential errors are corrected thanks to a feedback loop with data originators. For beach litter, the harmonized datasets contain all unrestricted EMODnet Chemistry data on beach litter, including monitoring data, data from cleaning surveys and data from research. A relevant part of the monitoring data has been considered for assessment purposes by the European institutions and therefore is tagged as MSFD_monitoring. EMODnet beach litter data and databases are hosted and maintained by 'Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale, Division of Oceanography (OGS/NODC)' from Italy. Data are formatted following Guidelines and forms for gathering marine litter data, which can be found at: https://doi.org/10.6092/15c0d34c-a01a-4091-91ac-7c4f561ab508 The updated vocabularies of admitted values are available at: https://nodc.ogs.it/marinelitter/vocab The harmonized datasets can be downloaded as EMODnet Beach litter data format Version 7.0, which is a spreadsheet file composed of 4 sheets: beach metadata, survey metadata, animals and litter. Local_CDI field in the survey metadata sheet allows to retrieve the original data.

This visualization product displays marine macro-litter (> 2.5cm) material categories percentages per beach per year from the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) monitoring surveys. EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of beach litter have been gathered and processed in the EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database (MLDB). The harmonization of all the data has been the most challenging task considering the heterogeneity of the data sources, sampling protocols and reference lists used on a European scale. Preliminary processings were necessary to harmonize all the data: - Exclusion of OSPAR 1000 protocol: in order to follow the approach of OSPAR that it is not including these data anymore in the monitoring; - Selection of MSFD surveys only (exclusion of other monitoring, cleaning and research operations); - Exclusion of beaches without coordinates; - Some litter types like organic litter, small fragments (paraffin and wax; items > 2.5cm) and pollutants have been removed. The list of selected items is attached to this metadata. This list was created using EU Marine Beach Litter Baselines, the European Threshold Value for Macro Litter on Coastlines and the Joint list of litter categories for marine macro-litter monitoring from JRC (these three documents are attached to this metadata); - Exclusion of the "feaces" category: it concerns more exactly the items of dog excrements in bags of the OSPAR (item code: 121) and ITA (item code: IT59) reference lists; - Normalization of survey lengths to 100m & 1 survey / year: in some case, the survey length was not exactly 100m, so in order to be able to compare the abundance of litter from different beaches a normalization is applied using this formula: Number of items (normalized by 100 m) = Number of litter per items x (100 / survey length) Then, this normalized number of items is summed to obtain the total normalized number of litter for each survey. Sometimes the survey length was null or equal to 0. Assuming that the MSFD protocol has been applied, the length has been set at 100m in these cases. To calculate the percentage for each material category, formula applied is: Material (%) = (∑number of items (normalized at 100 m) of each material category)*100 / (∑number of items (normalized at 100 m) of all categories) The material categories differ between reference lists (OSPAR, ITA, TSG-ML, UNEP, UNEP-MARLIN, JLIST). In order to apply a common procedure for all the surveys, the material categories have been harmonized. More information is available in the attached documents. Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that they do not exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.

This visualization product displays the size of litter in percent per net per year from specific protocols different from research and monitoring protocols. EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Before 2021, there was no coordinated effort at the regional or European scale for micro-litter. Given this situation, EMODnet Chemistry proposed to adopt the data gathering and data management approach as generally applied for marine data, i.e., populating metadata and data in the CDI Data Discovery and Access service using dedicated SeaDataNet data transport formats. EMODnet Chemistry is currently the official EU collector of micro-litter data from Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) National Monitoring activities (descriptor 10). A series of specific standard vocabularies or standard terms related to micro-litter have been added to SeaDataNet NVS (NERC Vocabulary Server) Common Vocabularies to describe the micro-litter. European micro-litter data are collected by the National Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs). Micro-litter map products are generated from NODCs data after a test of the aggregated collection including data and data format checks and data harmonization. A filter is applied to represent only micro-litter sampled according to a very specific protocol such as the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) or Oceaneye. To calculate percentages for each size, formula applied is: Size (%) = (∑number of particles of each size)*100 / (∑number of particles of all size) When the number of micro-litters was not filled or was equal to zero, it was not possible to calculate the percentage. Standard vocabularies for micro-litter size classes are taken from Seadatanet's H03 library (https://vocab.seadatanet.org/v_bodc_vocab_v2/search.asp?lib=H03 ). Different protocols with different degrees of precision were used to classify the sampled micro-litters. Consequently, on the map, the distribution of micro-litter in the size classes depends on the protocol applied during the survey. Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that they do not exist, but that no information has been entered in the National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) for this area.

This visualization product displays the density of floating micro-litter per net normalized per km² per year from research and monitoring protocols. EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Before 2021, there was no coordinated effort at the regional or European scale for micro-litter. Given this situation, EMODnet Chemistry proposed to adopt the data gathering and data management approach as generally applied for marine data, i.e., populating metadata and data in the CDI Data Discovery and Access service using dedicated SeaDataNet data transport formats. EMODnet Chemistry is currently the official EU collector of micro-litter data from Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) National Monitoring activities (descriptor 10). A series of specific standard vocabularies or standard terms related to micro-litter have been added to SeaDataNet NVS (NERC Vocabulary Server) Common Vocabularies to describe the micro-litter. European micro-litter data are collected by the National Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs). Micro-litter map products are generated from NODCs data after a test of the aggregated collection including data and data format checks and data harmonization. A filter is applied to represent only micro-litter sampled according to research and monitoring protocols as MSFD monitoring. Densities were calculated for each net using the following calculation: Density (number of particles per km²) = Micro-litter count / (Sampling effort (km) * Net opening (cm) * 0.00001) When information about the sampling effort (km) was lacking and point coordinates were known (start and end of the sampling), the sampling effort was calculated using the PostGIS ST_DistanceSpheroid function with a WGS84 measurement spheroid. When the number of micro-litters or the net opening was not filled, it was not possible to calculate the density. Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account data for all years. Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that they do not exist, but that no information has been entered in the National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) for this area.

EMODnet Chemistry aims to provide access to marine chemistry data sets and derived data products concerning eutrophication, ocean acidification, contaminants and litter. The chosen parameters are relevant for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), in particular for descriptors 5, 8, 9 and 10. The dataset contains standardized, harmonized and validated data collections from beach litter (monitoring and other sources). Datasets concerning beach and seafloor litter data are loaded in a central database after a semi-automated validation phase. Once loaded, a data assessment is performed in order to check data consistency and potential errors are corrected thanks to a feedback loop with data originators. For beach litter, the harmonized datasets contain all unrestricted EMODnet Chemistry data on beach litter, including monitoring data, data from cleaning surveys and data from research. A relevant part of the monitoring data has been considered for assessment purposes by the European institutions and therefore is tagged as MSFD_monitoring. EMODnet beach litter data and databases are hosted and maintained by 'Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale, Division of Oceanography (OGS/NODC)' from Italy. Data are formatted following Guidelines and forms for gathering marine litter data, which can be found at: https://doi.org/10.6092/15c0d34c-a01a-4091-91ac-7c4f561ab508 The updated vocabularies of admitted values are available at: https://nodc.ogs.it/marinelitter/vocab The European harmonized dataset is provided as csv format in two files, one containing the survey data and one containing the survey metadata. The dataset is available through direct download or through ERDDAP.