New paper led by ECN staff describes a climate service for ecologists through sharing regional climate scenario data
ECN has been a key contributor to the European LTER (eLTER) initiative for a number of years. eLTER’s focus is to advance the development of long-term ecosystem research infrastructure across Europe. A recently published paper led by ECN's Sue Rennie (UKCEH) describes how the eLTER Information System infrastructure has been expanded by a climate service data product, providing access to pre-processed regional climate change scenario data from a state-of-the-art regional climate model ensemble of the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX).
These data are site-based and are available for 702 registered ecological research sites across Europe, including the UK’s ECN sites.
This is a valuable data resource which allows researchers to describe the climate at these sites, explore future projections for different climate change scenarios and make regional climate change assessments and impact studies. It will provide a useful resource for ECN researchers, complementing the already comprehensive data resources collected at ECN sites.
Rennie, S., et al. (2021). A climate service for ecologists: sharing pre-processed EURO-CORDEX regional climate scenario data using the eLTER Information System, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 631–644. DOI: 10.5194/essd-13-631-2021
|
The wide range of regular environmental measurements, coupled with a wealth of historical data and the local knowledge of site managers mean that many ECN sites make excellent locations for field environmental research and teaching.
As well as being a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Porton Down is also a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and a Special Protection Area (SPA) covering over 1500 hectares. It constitutes the largest uninterrupted tract of semi-natural chalk grassland in Britain, a habitat which has declined by more than 80% in the last 50 years. As well as the grassland the site supports large areas of mixed scrub, including juniper, and broadleaved, mixed and coniferous woodland.
COSMOS-UK soil moisture monitoring
