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.

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.

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

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.

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?

The Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) has been identified as a coherent mode of natural variability occurring in the North Atlantic Ocean with an estimated period of 60-80 years. It is based upon the average anomalies of sea surface temperatures (SST) in the North Atlantic basin, typically over 0-80N. To remove the climate change signal from the AMO index, users typically detrend the SST data at each gridpoint or detrend the spatially averaged time series. Trenberth and Shea (2006) recommend that the detrending be done by subtracting the global-mean SST anomaly time series from the spatially averaged time series. See the Expert Guidance by Dr. Kevin Trenberth for the rationale for the global-mean detrending approach. The Expert Guidance by Dr. Rong Zhang discusses the impacts and mechanisms of the AMO.

Output of the 2019 EUSeaMap broad-scale predictive model, produced by EMODnet Seabed Habitats and aggregated into the Benthic Broad Habitat Types of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (as defined in the Commission Decision 17 May 2017). The extent of the mapped area includes the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, Baltic Sea, and areas of the North Eastern Atlantic extending from the Canary Islands in the south to the Barents Sea in the north. The map was produced using a "top-down" modelling approach using classified habitat descriptors to determine a final output habitat. Habitat descriptors differ per region but include: - Biological zone - Energy class - Oxygen regime - Salinity regime - Seabed substrate - Riverine input Habitat descriptors (excepting Substrate) are calculated using underlying physical data and thresholds derived from statistical analyses or expert judgement on known conditions.

Distribution of unequivocal Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs) and VME likelihood based on indicator taxa records, on the North Atlantic (18°N to 76°N and 36°E to 98°W). Several datasets, originating from public databases, literature review and data call to ATLAS partners, were gathered to compute the presence of unequivocal VME habitats in 25km * 25 km cells for the ATLAS work package 3. One layer displays the unequivocal VMEs (value=4) and the assigned high (value=3), medium (value=2) or low (value=1) likelihood of gridsquares to host VMEs, indexed on indicator taxa records from public databases with the method detailed in Morato et al (2018). The second displays the confidence associated to the VME likelihood score, indexed on data quality as detailed in Morato et al (2018) (values for unequivocal VMEs thus 100% confidence=4; high confidence=3; medium confidence=2; low confidence=1). This dataset was built to feed a basin-wide spatial conservation planning exercise, targeting the deep sea of the North Atlantic. The goal of this approach was to identify conservation priority areas for Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs) and deep fish species, based on the distribution of species and habitats, human activities and current spatial management.

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.