A 10-Year Dataset of Basic Meteorology and Soil Properties in Central Sudan

Meteorological data and soil data have been collected at a site in the central Sudan from 2002 to 2012. The site is a sparse savanna in the semiarid region of Sudan. In addition to basic meteorological variables, soil properties (temperature, water content, and heat flux) and radiation (global radiation, net radiation, and photosynthetic active radiation) were measured. The dataset has a temporal resolution of 30 minutes and provides general data for calibration and validation of ecosystem models and remote-sensing-based assessments, and it is relevant for studies of ecosystem properties and processes.

A Database for Long-Term Atmosphere-Surface Transfer Monitoring in Salento Peninsula (Southern Italy)

The micrometeorological base of ISAC-CNR in Lecce, southeast of Italy, has been active since 2002, in collecting experimental data about surface-atmosphere transfer of momentum heat and water vapour. It operates in a suburban site inside the Salento University campus and has been improved along the past years in terms of active sensors to give a quite complete description of the soil-atmosphere vertical transfer. It is composed by a 16 m mast with fast response (eddy correlation) instrumentation and an ancillary automatic meteorological station collecting also soil data at 2 levels of depth. Fast response data are preprocessed in half-hour averaged satistics and stored in a web database. At present, the Lecce database is also a pilot reference structure for the Climate Change Section of the CNR-DTA GIIDA project (Integrated and Interoperative Management of Environmental Data project, Earth and Environment Department, National Research Council), aimed to build a spatial data infrastructure between different CNR-DTA structures collecting environmental data. It is also a data provider for the Hymex project database (Hydrological Mediterranean Experiment).

Rainfall, Soil Water Content, and Groundwater Levels at the Riverlands Nature Reserve (South Africa)

Quantified medium- and long-term hydrological datasets are scarce in South Africa, yet they are essential to gain understanding of natural systems, contribute to ecosystem conservation, and ultimately quantify water balance processes accurately. A hydrological experiment was carried out at Riverlands Nature Reserve (Western Cape, South Africa) in order to quantify the components of the soil water balance at experimental sites occupied by endemic and invasive vegetation. In two separate follow-up projects, five-year time series were collected in three treatments, namely, endemic fynbos vegetation, bare soil, and land invaded by Acacia saligna. Rainfall was recorded daily with a manual rain gauge. Groundwater levels were logged hourly at 14 boreholes. Volumetric soil water contents and soil temperatures were logged hourly at different depths in the soil profile. Groundwater levels and soil water contents responded to rainfall with very clear seasonal trends. The data can be applied in water balance and evapotranspiration studies, unsaturated flux studies, soil temperature profile studies, and rainfall-groundwater level response analysis and for calibrating and validating a wide range of hydrological models.

Bending Angle and Temperature Climatologies from Global Positioning System Radio Occultations

The Global Positioning System (GPS) Radio Occultation (OR) technique provides estimates of atmospheric density, temperature, and water vapour content with high vertical resolution, global coverage, and high accuracy. We have used data acquired using this technique in the period 1995–2009 to create a reference climatology of radio occultation bending angle and atmospheric temperature which are used for meteorological studies. The bending angle is interesting because it is a direct measurement and independent of models. It is given with one-degree spatial resolution and 50-meter vertical sampling. In addition, we give the temperature climatology with one-degree spatial resolution and 100-meter vertical sampling. This dataset can be used for several applications including weather forecast, physics of atmosphere, and climate changes. Since the GPS signal is not affected by clouds and the acquisitions are evenly distributed in the globe, the dataset is well suited for studying extreme events (such as convective systems and tropical cyclones) and remote areas.

Global Speleothem Oxygen Isotope Measurements Since the Last Glacial Maximum

This synthesis of thirty-six sites (sixty cores with over 27 000 measurements) located around the world facilitates scientific research on the climate of the last 21 000 years ago obtained from oxygen isotope ( or delta-O-18) measurements. Oxygen isotopes in speleothem calcite record the influence of ambient temperature and the isotopic composition of the source water, the latter providing evidence of hydrologic variability and change. Compared to paleoclimate proxies from sedimentary archives, the age uncertainty is unusually small, around +/−100 years for the last 21 000-year interval. Using data contributed to the World Data Center (WDC) for Paleoclimatology, we have created consistently formatted data files for individual sites as well as composite dataset of annual to millennial resolution. These individual files also contain the chronology information about the sites. The data are useful in understanding hydrologic variability at local and regional scales, such as the Asian summer monsoon and the Intertropical Convergence Zone (as discussed in the underlying source publications), and should also be useful in understanding large-scale aspects of hydrologic change since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).

Long-Term Aerosol Climate Data Record Derived from Operational AVHRR Satellite Observations

Aerosol optical thickness (AOT) was retrieved using the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) PATMOS-x Level-2b gridded radiances and the two-channel algorithm of the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). The primary retrieval product is AOT at 0.63 μm channel. AOT is also retrieved at 0.83 μm or 1.61 μm channel for consistent check. The retrieval was made during day time, under clear sky and snow-free conditions, and over the global oceans. The spatial resolution is 0.1×0.1 degree grid and the temporal resolution is both daily and monthly. The resultant AVHRR AOT climate data record (CDR) spans from August 1981 to December 2009 and provides the longest aerosol CDR currently available from operational satellites. This dataset is useful in studying aerosol climate forcing, monitoring long-term aerosol trends, and evaluating global air pollution and aerosol transport models over the global ocean.