Data products from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument onboard the Terra and Aqua satellites as part of NASA-led international Earth Observation System (EOS) programme. MODIS provides high radiometric sensitivity (12 bit) in 36 spectral bands ranging in wavelength from 0.4 micrometres to 14.4 micrometres. Two bands are imaged at a nominal resolution of 250 m at nadir, with five bands at 500 m, and the remaining 29 bands at 1 km. A +/- 55-degree scanning pattern at the EOS orbit of 705 km achieves a 2,330-km swath and provides global coverage every one to two days. The main objective of MODIS is to enhance our understandings on global dynamics and processes occurring on the land, in the oceans and in the lower atmosphere, and these data are also essential in the development of validated, global and interactive Earth system models.

The Global Ocean Surface Temperature Atlas Plus (GOSTAplus) contains maps of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) climatologies and anomalies, Night Marine Air temperature climatologies and anomalies and Sea Ice coverage spanning the period 1851-1995. Dataset includes gridded, global SSTs from 1951-1990 and Sea Ice coverage from 1903 to 1994. The data are provided by the Met Office. Updated version of some data also available on request.

Landsat 4 and Landsat 5 carry both the TM (thematic mapper) and the MSS (multi-spectral scanner) sensors, though routine collection of MSS data was terminated in late 1992. The satellites orbit at an altitude of 705 km and provide a 16-day, 233-orbit cycle with a swath overlap that varies from 7 percent at the Equator to nearly 84 percent at 81 degrees north or south latitude. Landsat data is widely used in many fields including geology, agriculture, resource management, climate analysis etc. The Landsat program is jointly managed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US Geological Survey (USGS). The NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC) now also holds the data. The cost of retrieving data from these satellites is now prohibitive and they are now obsolete; in 1993 Landsat 6 failed to achieve orbit but the launch of Landsat 7 in 1999 provided open source data at less than commercial prices. See Landsat 7 article. Note: Gaining access to the Landsat 4/5 TM data will also automatically give you access to the Landsat 7 etm data also held at the NEODC

The HadGEM2 model is the Met Office Hadley centre global environment model version 2. The Atmospheric resolution of this model is 1.25 degrees latitude by 1.875 degrees with 38 levels (N96L38). The HadGEM2-AO model is a configuration of the HadGEM2 model which is an atmosphere ocean simulation with other component interfaces replaced with ancillary file input. Part of the UK Met Office Hadley Centre's contributions to the fifth assessment report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was based on the HadGEM2 model. Specifically, this data were used for the ENSEMBLES EU FP7 project. These data are provided in the Met Office PP format, but tools are available to extract subsets in NetCDF and other formats.

These data are part of the NERC Clouds, Water Vapour and Climate (CWVC) programme. With a diameter of 25 metres the 3 GHz CAMRa at Chilbolton Observatory (UK) is the largest steerable meteorological radar in the world. Polarisation and Doppler data are stored in netCDF format for 30 March 1999, 9 June 2000, 20 October 2000, 21 November 2000, and 28 February 2001. Quicklook images are also available.

Earth-system modelling data from the UK-Japan Climate Collaboration (UJCC). The project is a joint project between the Hadley Centre (DEFRA) and the NCAS-CGAM (Centre for Global Atmospheric Modelling) at the University of Reading. UJCC makes use of a broad group of models in order to systematically explore the role and value of resolution in climate system research. The dataset comprises of UJCC 30 year simulations from models at resolutions of either (1.25 lat x 1.875 lon) or (0.83 lat x 1.25 lon) with differing degrees of atmosphere-ocean coupling (1 degree ocean or 1/3 degree ocean). The dataset also includes NUGAM (Nihon-UK Global Environmental Model) Atmosphere only simulations and NUGEM Coupled atmosphere and ocean simulations which are both at the same resolution (0.83 lat x 0.56 lon, corresponding to ~60 km in mid-latitudes).

CRUTEM is a dataset derived from air temperatures near to the land surface recorded at weather stations across all continents of Earth. It has been developed and maintained by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) since the early 1980s, with funding provided mostly by the US Department of Energy. Since the early 2000s, the Met Office Hadley Centre (MOHC) have also been involved, especially in the regular updating of the operational version of CRUTEM (current version CRUTEM5) and in the development of the CRUTEM uncertainty model. The lead scientist for most of this work was Professor Phil Jones, but for CRUTEM5 it is Professor Tim Osborn. CRUTEM has been combined with the MOHC's dataset of sea surface temperatures to provide a near-global dataset of temperatures across Earth's surface, called HadCRUT. These datasets have been widely used for assessing anthropogenic climate change.

Data from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) instrument on-board the Eumetsat Polar System Metop-B satellite. The IASI is designed to measure the infrared spectrum emitted by the Earth. IASI provides infrared soundings of the temperature profiles in the troposphere and lower stratosphere, moisture profiles in the troposphere, and some of the chemical components playing a key role in the climate monitoring, global change and atmospheric chemistry. Data were directly acquired from Eumetsat.

The Landsat 7 program uses the Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) and provides contiguous data from Landsat 1 program from the early 1970's to present (2012). Landsat-7 is the most recent of the series of Landsat satellites, having been launched on 15th April 1999. It has an anticipated mission lifetime of 5+ years. The spacecraft is about 14 feet long (4.3 meters) and 9 feet (2.8 meters) in diameter. It consists of a spacecraft bus, built by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space in Valley Forge, Pa., and the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) instrument, developed by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing, California. The ETM+ (extended thematic mapper) sensor is an eight band multi-spectral scanning radiometer providing high-resolution images of the earth, detecting visible, near-infrared, short wave and thermal infrared frequency bands. The orbit follows that of earlier Landsat satellites and thus provides continuity of earth surface coverage claimed to be unparalleled by any other instrument. It possesses a worldwide reference system operating to a tolerance of +- 0.05 degrees that catalogues the earth's surface into 57,784 scenes each 183km by 170 km. Landsat data is widely used in many fields including geology, agriculture, resource management, climate analysis etc. The program is jointly run by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US Geological Survey (USGS). The NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC) now also holds the data. Note: Gaining access to the Landsat 4/5 TM data will also automatically give you access to the Landsat 4/5 TM data also held at the NEODC

The ESA Sea Surface Temperature Climate Change Initiative (ESA SST_cci) datasets accurately map the surface temperature of the global oceans over the period 1981 to 2016 using observations from many satellites. The data provide independently quantified SSTs to a quality suitable for climate research. The latest version (v2.1) of the data are described in the data paper: Merchant, C.J., Embury, O., Bulgin, C.E., Block T., Corlett, G.K., Fiedler, E., Good, S.A., Mittaz, J., Rayner, N.A., Berry, D., Eastwood, S., Taylor, M., Tsushima, Y., Waterfall, A., Wilson, R., Donlon, C. Satellite-based time-series of sea-surface temperature since 1981 for climate applications, Scientific Data 6:223 (2019). http://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0236-x Data are made freely and openly available under a Creative Commons License by Attribution (CC By 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . To comply with the attribution aspect, please cite the above reference and the dataset citation given on the relevant dataset page.