Description: ObsPack: a framework for the preparation, delivery, and attribution of atmospheric greenhouse gas measurements Earth System Science Data, 6, 375-384, 2014 Author(s): K. A. Masarie, W. Peters, A. R. Jacobson, and P. P. Tans Observation Package (ObsPack) is a framework designed to bring together atmospheric greenhouse gas observations from a variety of sampling platforms, prepare them with specific applications in mind, and package and distribute them in a self-consistent and well-documented product. Data products created using the ObsPack framework (called "ObsPack products") are intended to support carbon cycle modeling studies and represent a next generation of value-added greenhouse gas observation products modeled after the cooperative GLOBALVIEW products introduced in 1996. Depending on intended use, ObsPack products may include data in their original form reformatted using the ObsPack framework or may contain derived data consisting of averages, subsets, or smoothed representations of original data. All products include extensive ancillary information (metadata) intended to help ensure the data are used appropriately, their calibration and quality assurance history are clearly described, and that individuals responsible for the measurements (data providers or principal investigators (PIs)) are properly acknowledged for their work. ObsPack products are made freely available using a distribution strategy designed to improve communication between data providers and product users. The strategy includes a data usage policy that requires users to directly communicate with data providers and an automated e-mail notification system triggered when a product is accessed. ObsPack products will be assigned a unique digital object identifier (DOI) to ensure each product can be unambiguously identified in scientific literature. Here we describe the ObsPack framework and its potential role in supporting the evolving needs of both data providers and product users.

Description: Sea ice in the Baltic Sea – revisiting BASIS ice, a historical data set covering the period 1960/1961–1978/1979 Earth System Science Data, 6, 367-374, 2014 Author(s): U. Löptien and H. Dietze The Baltic Sea is a seasonally ice-covered, marginal sea in central northern Europe. It is an essential waterway connecting highly industrialised countries. Because ship traffic is intermittently hindered by sea ice, the local weather services have been monitoring sea ice conditions for decades. In the present study we revisit a historical monitoring data set, covering the winters 1960/1961 to 1978/1979. This data set, dubbed Data Bank for Baltic Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperatures (BASIS) ice, is based on hand-drawn maps that were collected and then digitised in 1981 in a joint project of the Finnish Institute of Marine Research (today the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI)) and the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI). BASIS ice was designed for storage on punch cards and all ice information is encoded by five digits. This makes the data hard to access. Here we present a post-processed product based on the original five-digit code. Specifically, we convert to standard ice quantities (including information on ice types), which we distribute in the current and free Network Common Data Format (NetCDF). Our post-processed data set will help to assess numerical ice models and provide easy-to-access unique historical reference material for sea ice in the Baltic Sea. In addition we provide statistics showcasing the data quality. The website http://www.baltic-ocean.org hosts the post-processed data and the conversion code. The data are also archived at the Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science, PANGAEA ( doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.832353 ).

Description: A high-frequency atmospheric and seawater p CO 2 data set from 14 open-ocean sites using a moored autonomous system Earth System Science Data, 6, 353-366, 2014 Author(s): A. J. Sutton, C. L. Sabine, S. Maenner-Jones, N. Lawrence-Slavas, C. Meinig, R. A. Feely, J. T. Mathis, S. Musielewicz, R. Bott, P. D. McLain, H. J. Fought, and A. Kozyr In an intensifying effort to track ocean change and distinguish between natural and anthropogenic drivers, sustained ocean time series measurements are becoming increasingly important. Advancements in the ocean carbon observation network over the last decade, such as the development and deployment of Moored Autonomous p CO 2 (MAPCO 2 ) systems, have dramatically improved our ability to characterize ocean climate, sea–air gas exchange, and biogeochemical processes. The MAPCO 2 system provides high-resolution data that can measure interannual, seasonal, and sub-seasonal dynamics and constrain the impact of short-term biogeochemical variability on carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) flux. Overall uncertainty of the MAPCO 2 using in situ calibrations with certified gas standards and post-deployment standard operating procedures is 〈 2 μatm for seawater partial pressure of CO 2 ( p CO 2 ) and 〈 1 μatm for air p CO 2 . The MAPCO 2 maintains this level of uncertainty for over 400 days of autonomous operation. MAPCO 2 measurements are consistent with shipboard seawater p CO 2 measurements and GLOBALVIEW-CO2 boundary layer atmospheric values. Here we provide an open-ocean MAPCO 2 data set including over 100 000 individual atmospheric and seawater p CO 2 measurements on 14 surface buoys from 2004 through 2011 and a description of the methods and data quality control involved. The climate-quality data provided by the MAPCO 2 have allowed for the establishment of open-ocean observatories to track surface ocean p CO 2 changes around the globe. Data are available at doi:10.3334/CDIAC/OTG.TSM_NDP092 and http://cdiac.ornl.gov/oceans/Moorings/ndp092 .

Description: Deriving a per-field land use and land cover map in an agricultural mosaic catchment Earth System Science Data, 6, 339-352, 2014 Author(s): B. Seo, C. Bogner, P. Poppenborg, E. Martin, M. Hoffmeister, M. Jun, T. Koellner, B. Reineking, C. L. Shope, and J. Tenhunen Detailed data on land use and land cover constitute important information for Earth system models, environmental monitoring and ecosystem services research. Global land cover products are evolving rapidly; however, there is still a lack of information particularly for heterogeneous agricultural landscapes. We censused land use and land cover field by field in the agricultural mosaic catchment Haean in South Korea. We recorded the land cover types with additional information on agricultural practice. In this paper we introduce the data, their collection and the post-processing protocol. Furthermore, because it is important to quantitatively evaluate available land use and land cover products, we compared our data with the MODIS Land Cover Type product (MCD12Q1). During the studied period, a large portion of dry fields was converted to perennial crops. Compared to our data, the forested area was underrepresented and the agricultural area overrepresented in MCD12Q1. In addition, linear landscape elements such as waterbodies were missing in the MODIS product due to its coarse spatial resolution. The data presented here can be useful for earth science and ecosystem services research. The data are available at the public repository Pangaea ( doi:110.1594/PANGAEA.823677 ).

Description: High-resolution ice thickness and bed topography of a land-terminating section of the Greenland Ice Sheet Earth System Science Data, 6, 331-338, 2014 Author(s): K. Lindbäck, R. Pettersson, S. H. Doyle, C. Helanow, P. Jansson, S. S. Kristensen, L. Stenseng, R. Forsberg, and A. L. Hubbard We present ice thickness and bed topography maps with a high spatial resolution (250–500 m) of a land-terminating section of the Greenland Ice Sheet derived from ground-based and airborne radar surveys. The data have a total area of ~12 000 km 2 and cover the whole ablation area of the outlet glaciers of Isunnguata Sermia, Russell, Leverett, Ørkendalen and Isorlersuup up to the long-term mass balance equilibrium line altitude at ~1600 m above sea level. The bed topography shows highly variable subglacial trough systems, and the trough of Isunnguata Sermia Glacier is overdeepened and reaches an elevation of ~500 m below sea level. The ice surface is smooth and only reflects the bedrock topography in a subtle way, resulting in a highly variable ice thickness. The southern part of our study area consists of higher bed elevations compared to the northern part. The compiled data sets of ground-based and airborne radar surveys cover one of the most studied regions of the Greenland Ice Sheet and can be valuable for detailed studies of ice sheet dynamics and hydrology. The combined data set is freely available at doi:10.1594/pangaea.830314.

Description: Spatially explicit estimates of stock size, structure and biomass of North Atlantic albacore tuna ( Thunnus alalunga ) Earth System Science Data, 6, 317-329, 2014 Author(s): P. Lehodey, I. Senina, A.-C. Dragon, and H. Arrizabalaga The development of the ecosystem approach and models for the management of ocean marine resources requires easy access to standard validated data sets 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 outputs, while the use of a standard data set facilitates models inter-comparison. Unlike standard stock assessment models, new state-of-the-art ecosystem models require geo-referenced fishing data with the highest possible spatial resolution. This study presents an application to the North Atlantic albacore tuna stock with a careful definition and validation of a spatially explicit fishing data set prepared from publicly available sources (ICCAT) for its use in a spatial ecosystem and population dynamics model (SEAPODYM) to provide the first spatially explicit estimate of albacore density in the North Atlantic by life stage. Density distributions together with the fishing data used for the estimates are provided at http://doi.pangaea.de/ (see section Source Data References) ( doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828115 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828226 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828227 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828228 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828229 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828230 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828231 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828232 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828232 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828233 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828234 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828235 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828236 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828237 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828238 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828168 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828170 ; doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828171 ).

Description: A "Global Radiosonde and tracked-balloon Archive on Sixteen Pressure levels" (GRASP) going back to 1905 – Part 2: homogeneity adjustments for pilot balloon and radiosonde wind data Earth System Science Data, 6, 297-316, 2014 Author(s): L. Ramella Pralungo and L. Haimberger This paper describes the comprehensive homogenization of the "Global Radiosonde and tracked balloon Archive on Sixteen Pressure levels" (GRASP) wind records. Many of those records suffer from artificial shifts that need to be detected and adjusted before they are suitable for climate studies. Time series of departures between observations and the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration 20th-century (NOAA-20CR) surface pressure only reanalysis have been calculated offline by first interpolating the observations to pressure levels and standard synoptic times, if needed, and then interpolating the gridded NOAA-20CR standard pressure level data horizontally to the observation locations. These difference time series are quite sensitive to breaks in the observation time series and can be used for both automatic detection and adjustment of the breaks. Both wind speed and direction show a comparable number of breaks, roughly one break in three stations. More than a hundred artificial shifts in wind direction could be detected at several US stations in the period 1938/1955. From the 1960s onward the wind direction breaks are less frequent. Wind speed data are not affected as much by measurement biases, but one has to be aware of a large fair-weather sampling bias in early years, when high wind speeds were much less likely to be observed than after 1960, when radar tracking was already common practice. This bias has to be taken into account when calculating trends or monthly means from wind speed data. Trends of both wind speed and direction look spatially more homogeneous after adjustment. With the exception of a widespread wind direction bias found in the early US network, no signs of pervasive measurement biases could be found. The adjustments can likely improve observation usage when applied during data assimilation. Alternatively they can serve as a basis for validating variational wind bias adjustment schemes. Certainly, they are expected to improve estimates of global wind trends. All the homogeneity adjustments are available in the PANGAEA archive with associated doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.823617 .

Description: The GPCC Drought Index – a new, combined and gridded global drought index Earth System Science Data, 6, 285-295, 2014 Author(s): M. Ziese, U. Schneider, A. Meyer-Christoffer, K. Schamm, J. Vido, P. Finger, P. Bissolli, S. Pietzsch, and A. Becker The Global Precipitation Climatology Centre Drought Index (GPCC-DI) provides estimations of water supply anomalies with respect to long-term statistics. It is a combination of the Standardized Precipitation Index with adaptations from Deutscher Wetterdienst (SPI-DWD) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). Precipitation data were taken from the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) and temperature data from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC). The GPCC-DI is available with several accumulation periods of 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 24 and 48 months for different applications. It is issued monthly starting in January 2013. Typically, it is released on the 10th day of the following month, depending on the availability of the input data. It is calculated on a regular grid with 1° spatial resolution. All accumulation periods are integrated into one netCDF file for each month. This data set is referenced by the doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/DI_M_100 and is available free of charge from the GPCC website ftp://ftp.dwd.de/pub/data/gpcc/html/gpcc_di_doi_download.html .

Description: Global open-ocean biomes: mean and temporal variability Earth System Science Data, 6, 273-284, 2014 Author(s): A. R. Fay and G. A. McKinley Large-scale studies of ocean biogeochemistry and carbon cycling have often partitioned the ocean into regions along lines of latitude and longitude despite the fact that spatially more complex boundaries would be closer to the true biogeography of the ocean. Herein, we define 17 open-ocean biomes classified from four observational data sets: sea surface temperature (SST), spring/summer chlorophyll a concentrations (Chl a ), ice fraction, and maximum mixed layer depth (maxMLD) on a 1° × 1° grid (available at doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.828650 ). By considering interannual variability for each input, we create dynamic ocean biome boundaries that shift annually between 1998 and 2010. Additionally we create a core biome map, which includes only the grid cells that do not change biome assignment across the 13 years of the time-varying biomes. These biomes can be used in future studies to distinguish large-scale ocean regions based on biogeochemical function.

Description: Hydrographic data from the GEF Patagonia cruises Earth System Science Data, 6, 265-271, 2014 Author(s): M. Charo and A. R. Piola The hydrographic data reported here were collected within the framework of the Coastal Contamination, Prevention and Marine Management Project (Global Environment Facility (GEF) Patagonia), which was part of the scientific agenda of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The project goal was to strengthen efforts to improve sustainable management of marine biodiversity and reduce pollution of the Patagonia marine environment. The observational component of the project included three multidisciplinary oceanographic cruises designed to improve the knowledge base regarding the marine environment and to determine the seasonal variability of physical, biological and chemical properties of highly productive regions in the southwest South Atlantic continental shelf. The cruises were carried out on board R/V ARA Puerto Deseado , in October 2005 and March and September 2006. On each cruise, hydrographic stations were occupied along cross-shelf sections spanning the shelf from nearshore to the western boundary currents between 38° and 55° S. This paper reports the quasi-continuous vertical profiles (conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) profiles) and underway surface temperature and salinity data collected during the GEF Patagonia cruises. These data sets are available at the National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, US, doi:10.7289/V5RN35S0 .