This dataset contains fossil and modern pollen data collated during a workshop held in the UK in 2008 as part of the NERC (Quantifying and Understanding the Earth System) QUEST programme. The 96 sampling sites are located from 24°E (western Ukraine and Belarus) to easternmost Siberia, and lie north of latitude 40°N. The sample ages range from 21ka to present and are assigned to 1,000 year time slices. The dataset has been checked for consistent taxonomy and a redundancy-free taxonomy has been produced. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/6aeba247-52d1-4e84-949f-603742af40c1

Burnt areas are presented with a daily date of burn at 500m resolution for the circumpolar boreal forest zone. The dataset comprises eleven tiff files, one for each year: 2001 to 2011. The aim of this dataset is the improved understanding of spatio-temporal patterns and dynamics of boreal fire intensity and extent, the driving factors behind these variations, and the consequence for carbon fluxes for the whole boreal area. The source data for the daily burnt area product is the 16-day MODIS Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance (N-BAR) MCD43A4 product on the standard Sinusoidal projection. The burnt areas are identified by thresholding a differencing method, with the resulting fire-scars dated using MODIS thermal anomalies (MOD14A1). The results are annual TIFF images at 500m resolution with the pixel values being the first day of burn for that year. The product was validated using temporal assemblages of ETM images randomly located throughout the whole Boreal zone and analysed on a date and per pixel basis. The result was a Kappa co-efficient of 0.54. This algorithms used to map the burnt areas were developed by members of the CEH Wallingford Earth Observation group. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/0e2f1043-a08f-49da-a6c5-7ffc4ad6cac4

This dataset contains nutrient chemistry data from 14 lakes in the Arctic region: 4 in Russia and Alaska and 3 in Greenland and Norway. Nutrient chemistry was measured on one occasion only at each lake, with date of collection ranging from 01/04/2011 to 14/03/2014. The following nutrients were measured: total phosphorus, soluble reactive phosphorus, total nitrogen, nitrate, ammonium, chlorophyll a, silicate, sodium, magnesium, potassium, calcium, sulphate, chloride and dissolved organic carbon. All nutrients were measured using standardised methods and the same methods were used between lake samples. The data were collected as part of the Lakes and the Arctic Carbon Cycle (LAC) project, which is funded under NERC's Arctic Research Programme. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/b6f1e1a4-1f3b-4b74-99e5-651ade10f32c