External datasets catalogue

European phenological data platform for climatological applications — 02 Nov 2011

COST action 725 ‘Establishing a European phenological data platform for climatological applications’ comprising all phenological records digitally available at present. It included entire phenological networks of 11 countries (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Russia (provided by the 5FP project POSITIVE)), five specialists networks (Finland, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom) and the network of the International Phenological Gardens in Europe (http://www.agrar.huberlin. de/pflanzenbau/agrarmet/ipg_en.html), spreading over 14 countries including, in addition to countries named above, Croatia, Denmark, Greece, Ireland and Macedonia. In total, phenological trends of 542 plant species in 21 countries (125 628 time series) and 19 animal species in three countries (301 time series) were analysed. The phenophases of wild plants, fruit trees and agricultural crops were assigned to a BBCH (Biologische Bundesanstalt, Bundessortenamt and CHemical Industry) code (Meier, 1997) and grouped either by BBCH code or BBCH subgroups (principal growth stages). If applicable, agricultural and natural phases were treated separately. Annual mean onset dates for nine countries (Austria, Belarus/northern Russia, Estonia, Czech Republic,Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine/southern Russia), comprising 254 records (phenophases countries) of 101 years, however, mostly covering the total period 1951–1999, were available for the quantitative assessment of temperature responses.  

Changes in distribution of Ilex aquifolium — 02 Nov 2011

Reanalysis of both biogeographic and bioclimatic data of equal spatiotemporal resolution, covering a time span of more than 50 years.   In this paper, we compare both detailed historic climatic and biogeographic records with updates of the same parameters at the same localities in the northern fringe area of the distribution of Ilex aquifolium, applying the same methodology as used in the original study ( Iversen 1944 ). We also compare our field data to predictions from simulations of Ilex distributions using a purely climate-driven bioclimatic model. Our aim is, therefore, to verify whether a potential shift in the local and regional distribution of a species is in synchrony with concurrent changes in climatic data on the same spatio-temporal resolution. Mean temperature values for the warmest and coldest month for a subset of climate stations used by Iversen (1944) and updated for the period 1971 – 2000.  

Natuurindicatoren — 02 Nov 2011

  Number of observations of dragonflies of southern Europe by year.  

Summer heatwaves promote blooms of harmful cyanobacteria — 02 Nov 2011

A coupled biological–physical model investigating how competition for light between buoyant cyanobacteria, diatoms, and green algae in eutrophic lakes is affected by the meteorological conditions of this extreme summer heatwave. The model consists of a phytoplankton competition model coupled to a one-dimensional hydrodynamic model, driven by meteorological data.

Biological Records Centre — 02 Nov 2011

The Biological Records Centre (BRC), established in 1964, is the national focus in the UK for terrestrial and freshwater species recording (other than birds). It works with the voluntary recording community throughout Britain and Ireland. The BRC database contains over 15 million records of more than 12000 species. BRC is the national custodian of data on the distribution of wildlife in the British Isles.

Global Lake and River Ice Phenology Database — 02 Nov 2011

The Global Lake and River Ice Phenology Database contains freeze and breakup dates and other ice cover descriptive data for 748 lakes and rivers. Of the 429 water bodies that have records longer than 19 years, 287 are in North America and 141 are in Eurasia; 170 have records longer than 50 years; and 28 longer than 100 years. A few have data prior to 1845. These data, from water bodies distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, allow analysis of broad spatial patterns as well as long-term temporal patterns.

Hydrology and Water Resources Management Data system — 02 Nov 2011

Lake Saimaa water temperature measurements

Water temperature in Lake Võrtsjärv — 02 Nov 2011

Water temperature in Lake Võrtsjärv in southern Estonia

River Danube water temperature measurements — 02 Nov 2011

River Danube water temperature measurements

DONAR (Historical water measurement data) — 02 Nov 2011

  The monitoring programme (MWTL) collects physical, chemical, biological and morphological measurement data for water.  After verification and validation the data are stored in the main database DONAR. Using the Waterbase web application, you can graph data in both numerical form and view on your screen. Additionally, you can select data as an Excel or text file download.

Variation of floods and droughts in France — 01 Nov 2011

A French national project was set up in 2002 in order to study the variation of floods and droughts in France, based on a large set of discharge data series. Numerous approaches can be used to study trends and variations on hydrological data series, e.g. statistical tests, segmentation procedures, Bayesian approaches, and multivariate or regional models. A comparative analysis aimed at defining a general framework for the selection of a limited number of tests, based on the statistical properties of the hydrological data series (sample size, autocorrelation) and the prior knowledge of the type of distribution and the expected change. The first results on a set of about 200 French long data series do not show conclusive proof that climatic change has affected flood and drought regimes. A Bayesian model has finally been developed to incorporate hydrological nonstationarity into frequency analysis, using MCMC algorithms for the weighting of different time dependent models.  

European water archive — 01 Nov 2011

Since the inception of EURO-FRIEND in 1985, the development and maintenance of a hydrological database has been pursued with high priority. The resultant European Water Archive (EWA) has become one of the most comprehensive hydrological archives in Europe. Until 2003, EWA was hosted by the CEH in Wallingford, UK. At that time, GRDC acted as regional data centre, responsible for the data acquisition from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Slovakia. In 2004, GRDC was charged with the complete data holding. Since then GRDC maintains EWA in support of the European FRIEND programme. Currently EWA contains long-term daily flow data and catchment information for more than 3700 river gauging stations in 29 countries. Data archived in the EWA have been supplied on a voluntary basis and free of charge by various data providers. EWA data are provided free of charge to EURO-FRIEND project members under conditions.

River floods — 01 Nov 2011

Number of events per year

Global Runoff Database — 01 Nov 2011

  The Global Runoff Database at GRDC is a unique collection of river discharge data collected at daily or monthly intervals from more than 8000 stations in 157 countries. This adds up to around 320.000 station-years with an average record length of 40 years. The GRDC provides discharge data and data products for non-commercial applications. The GRDC operates under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and supports research on climate variability and global change. The German Federal Institute of Hydrology (Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde or BfG) hosts the GRDC in Koblenz near the confluence of the Moselle and Rhine Rivers.

Global trends in streamflow and water availability — 01 Nov 2011

The annual runoff fields from a total of 62 runs of the 20C3M experiment on 21 different models (one to nine runs per model) were integrated spatially over 165 river basins with long-term (28–99 years, median 59 years) streamflow measurements (see Methods). Climate-model runoff commonly does not reflect the time lag associated with storage in river basins. Although the missing time lag may not affect computed climates, it can strongly affect the temporal variability of streamflow, which is important for our analysis. Accordingly, the climate-model basin runoff time series were converted to equivalent streamflow time series by routing them through a model of a linear reservoir in such a way as to match the observed serial correlation (see Methods).

Changes in fish distribution in the eastern North Atlantic — 01 Nov 2011

Changes in fish distribution in the eastern North Atlantic

Tropical fish species caught in European Atlantic waters — 01 Nov 2011

Abstract - The records of tropical fishes and the warming of the European Atlantic waters. A recapitulation of the records of tropical fishes from European Atlantic waters shows that 67.6 % were fishes caught from the upper slope, between approximately 200 and 600 m; 19.8 % were fishes caught from the continental shelf; and 13.5 % were specimens caught from the middle slope, between 700 and 1 300 m. Since 1963, the upper slope species have made regular northward range extensions off of south Portugal to north-western Ireland (about 55” 30’ N), more and less rapidly, about 30 years for Cyttopsis roseus and only 6 years for Sphoeroides pachygaster. The continental shelf species, observed from 1969 but mostly from 198 1, have a northward range to south-eastern Ireland (about 52” N), but 65.2 % of them have been caught off the south of the Bay of Biscay. The middle slope species, recorded only from 1991 according to the development of the deep fishery, were caught between 48” N and 60” N. The northward range extension of upper slope species and the higher frequency of records of continental shelf species from the southern part of the Bay of Biscay coincide with the investigations on the warming of the south-north current in the upper slope of northern Spain and of the south French Atlantic continental shelf.

Sea surface temperature - Mediterranean Sea — 26 Oct 2011

Sea surface temperature

Sea surface temperature - Baltic and North Seas — 26 Oct 2011

Sea surface temperature - Baltic and North Seas

Recordings of the migration of the tropical fish species silvery john dory (Zenopsis conchifer) and rosy dory (Cyttopsis roseus) — 26 Oct 2011

Recordings of the migration of the tropical fish species silvery john dory (Zenopsis conchifer) and rosy dory (Cyttopsis roseus)