Articles | Volume 15, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-5701-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-5701-2023
Data description paper
 | 
18 Dec 2023
Data description paper |  | 18 Dec 2023

The Western Channel Observatory: a century of physical, chemical and biological data compiled from pelagic and benthic habitats in the western English Channel

Andrea J. McEvoy, Angus Atkinson, Ruth L. Airs, Rachel Brittain, Ian Brown, Elaine S. Fileman, Helen S. Findlay, Caroline L. McNeill, Clare Ostle, Tim J. Smyth, Paul J. Somerfield, Karen Tait, Glen A. Tarran, Simon Thomas, Claire E. Widdicombe, E. Malcolm S. Woodward, Amanda Beesley, David V. P. Conway, James Fishwick, Hannah Haines, Carolyn Harris, Roger Harris, Pierre Hélaouët, David Johns, Penelope K. Lindeque, Thomas Mesher, Abigail McQuatters-Gollop, Joana Nunes, Frances Perry, Ana M. Queiros, Andrew Rees, Saskia Rühl, David Sims, Ricardo Torres, and Stephen Widdicombe

Related authors

Part 2: Quantitative contributions of cyanobacterial alkaline phosphatases to biogeochemical rates in the subtropical North Atlantic
Noelle A. Held, Korrina Kunde, Clare E. Davis, Neil J. Wyatt, Elizabeth L. Mann, E. Malcolm S. Woodward, Matthew McIlvin, Alessandro Tagliabue, Benjamin S. Twining, Claire Mahaffey, Mak A. Saito, and Maeve C. Lohan
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3996,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3996, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Biogeosciences (BG).
Short summary
A novel multispecies approach for the detection of ecosystem regime shifts – a case study in the North Sea
Paul Dees, Friederike Fröb, Beatriz Arellano-Nava, David G. Johns, and Christoph Heinze
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-470,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-470, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Ocean Science (OS).
Short summary
A compilation of surface inherent optical properties and phytoplankton pigment concentrations from the Atlantic Meridional Transect
Thomas M. Jordan, Giorgio Dall'Olmo, Gavin Tilstone, Robert J. W. Brewin, Francesco Nencioli, Ruth Airs, Crystal S. Thomas, and Louise Schlüter
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 493–516, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-493-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-493-2025, 2025
Short summary
Part 1: Zonal gradients in phosphorus and nitrogen acquisition and stress revealed by metaproteomes of Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus
Claire Mahaffey, Noelle Held, Korinne Kunde, Clare Davis, Neil Wyatt, Matthew McIlvin, Malcolm Woodward, Lewis Wrightson, Alessandro Tagliabue, Maeve Lohan, and Mak Saito
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3987,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3987, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Biogeosciences (BG).
Short summary
Data supporting the North Atlantic Climate System Integrated Study (ACSIS) programme, including atmospheric composition; oceanographic and sea-ice observations (2016–2022); and output from ocean, atmosphere, land, and sea-ice models (1950–2050)
Alex T. Archibald, Bablu Sinha, Maria R. Russo, Emily Matthews, Freya A. Squires, N. Luke Abraham, Stephane J.-B. Bauguitte, Thomas J. Bannan, Thomas G. Bell, David Berry, Lucy J. Carpenter, Hugh Coe, Andrew Coward, Peter Edwards, Daniel Feltham, Dwayne Heard, Jim Hopkins, James Keeble, Elizabeth C. Kent, Brian A. King, Isobel R. Lawrence, James Lee, Claire R. Macintosh, Alex Megann, Bengamin I. Moat, Katie Read, Chris Reed, Malcolm J. Roberts, Reinhard Schiemann, David Schroeder, Timothy J. Smyth, Loren Temple, Navaneeth Thamban, Lisa Whalley, Simon Williams, Huihui Wu, and Mingxi Yang
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 135–164, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-135-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-135-2025, 2025
Short summary

Related subject area

Domain: ESSD – Ocean | Subject: Biological oceanography
A 45-year hydrological and planktonic time series in the South Bight of the North Sea
David Devreker, Guillaume Wacquet, and Alain Lefebvre
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 1173–1189, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-1173-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-1173-2025, 2025
Short summary
Bivalve monitoring over French coasts: multi-decadal records of carbon and nitrogen elemental and isotopic ratios as ecological indicators of global change
Camilla Liénart, Alan Fournioux, Andrius Garbaras, Hugues Blanchet, Nicolas Briant, Stanislas F. Dubois, Aline Gangnery, Anne Grouhel Pellouin, Pauline Le Monier, Arnaud Lheureux, Xavier de Montaudouin, and Nicolas Savoye
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 799–815, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-799-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-799-2025, 2025
Short summary
A comprehensive global mapping of offshore lighting
Christopher D. Elvidge, Tilottama Ghosh, Namrata Chatterjee, Mikhail Zhizhin, Paul C. Sutton, and Morgan Bazilian
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 579–594, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-579-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-579-2025, 2025
Short summary
A compilation of surface inherent optical properties and phytoplankton pigment concentrations from the Atlantic Meridional Transect
Thomas M. Jordan, Giorgio Dall'Olmo, Gavin Tilstone, Robert J. W. Brewin, Francesco Nencioli, Ruth Airs, Crystal S. Thomas, and Louise Schlüter
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 493–516, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-493-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-493-2025, 2025
Short summary
A hyperspectral and multi-angular synthetic dataset for algorithm development in waters of varying trophic levels and optical complexity
Jaime Pitarch and Vittorio Ernesto Brando
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 435–460, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-435-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-435-2025, 2025
Short summary

Cited articles

Álvarez, E., Lopez-Urrutia, A., and Nogueira, E.: Improvement of plankton biovolume estimates derived from image-based automatic sampling devices: application to FlowCAM, J. Plankton Res., 34, 454–469, 2012. 
Atkinson, A., Harmer, R. A., Widdicombe, C. E., McEvoy, A. J., Smyth, T. J., Cummings, D. G., Somerfield, P. J., Maud, J. L., and McConville, K.: Questioning the role of phenology shifts and trophic mismatching in a planktonic food web, Prog. Oceanogr., 137, 498–512, 2015. 
Atkinson, A., Polimene, L., Fileman, E. S., Widdicombe, C. E., McEvoy, A. J., Smyth, T. J., Djeghri, N., Sailley, S. F., and Cornwell, L. E.: Comment. What drives plankton seasonality in a stratifying shelf sea? Some competing and complementary theories, Limnol. Oceanogr., 63, 2877–2884, 2018. 
Atkinson, A., Lilley, M. K., Hirst, A. G., McEvoy, A. J., Tarran, G. A., Widdicombe, C., Fileman, E. S., Woodward, E. M. S., Schmidt, K., and Smyth, T. J.: Increasing nutrient stress reduces the efficiency of energy transfer through planktonic size spectra, Limnol. Oceanogr., 66, 422–437, 2021. 
Atkinson, A., McEvoy, A., Widdicombe, C., Beesley, A., Sanders, J., and Hiscock, K.: Chapter 5 – plankton observations 2021. South-west Marine Ecosystems Report for 2021, in: Marine Biological Association of the UK, Plymouth, edited by: Hiscock, K. and Earll, R., https://doi.org/10.17031/t98y-1806, 2022. 
Download
Short summary
Western Channel Observatory is an oceanographic time series and biodiversity reference site within 40 km of Plymouth (UK), sampled since 1903. Differing levels of reporting and formatting hamper the use of the valuable individual datasets. We provide the first summary database as monthly averages where comparisons can be made of the physical, chemical and biological data. We describe the database, illustrate its utility to examine seasonality and longer-term trends, and summarize previous work.
Share
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint