An integrated data compilation for the development of a marine protected area in the Weddell Sea

• Main Authors: Teschke, Katharina, Pehlke, Hendrik, Siegel, Volker, Bornemann, Horst, Knust, Rainer, Brey, Thomas
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Antarctic; Southern Ocean; The Antarctic; Weddell; Weddell Sea; Antarc*; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2019-86; https://www.earth-syst-sci-data-discuss.net/essd-2019-86/

The Southern Ocean may contribute a considerable part to the proposed global network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) that should cover about 10 % of the world oceans in 2020. In the Antarctic, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is responsible for this task, and currently Germany leads a corresponding scientific evaluation of the wider Weddell Sea region. Compared to other marine regions within the Southern Ocean, the Weddell Sea is exceptionally well investigated. A tremendous amount of data and information has been produced over the last four decades. Here, we give a compilation of these data that were acquired in the context of the Weddell Sea MPA planning process. The data compilation comprises data produced by scientists/institutions from more than twenty countries and were either available within our institutes, provided by our collaborators, downloaded via data portals, or transcribed from the literature. It is the first data compilation for this area that includes abiotic data, such as bathymetry and sea ice, and ecological data from zooplankton, zoobenthos, fish, birds and marine mammals. The final data layer products based on this data compilation, including metadata description, are available from the data publisher PANGAE via the five persistent identifiers at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.899520 (Pehlke et al., 2019a), https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.899591 (Teschke et al., 2019a), https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.899595 (Pehlke and Teschke, 2019), https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.899619 (Pehlke et al., 2019b), https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.899645 (Teschke et al., 2019b) and https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.899667 (Teschke et al., 2019c). This data compilation with the final data layer products will serve future research and monitoring well beyond the current MPA development process.