ESSD cover
Chief editors: Kirsten Elger, Sibylle K. Hassler, Conrad Jackisch, Ken Mankoff, Graciela Raga, François G. Schmitt, Hanqin Tian & Yuyu Zhou
eISSN: ESSD 1866-3516, ESSDD 1866-3591

Earth System Science Data (ESSD) is an international, interdisciplinary journal for the publication of articles on original research data (sets), furthering the reuse of high-quality data of benefit to Earth system sciences. The editors encourage submissions on original data or data collections which are of sufficient quality and have potential to contribute to these aims. The journal maintains sections for regular-length articles, brief communications (e.g. on additions to data sets) and commentaries, as well as review articles and special issues.

This short commentary draws on ESSD author, reviewer and editor experiences over its first 10 years of operation to define guidelines, requirements and benefits of the ESSD processes.

News

13 Feb 2026 University of Western Ontario partners with Copernicus Publications to support open-access publishing

Copernicus Publications has signed a new agreement with Western Libraries at the University of Western Ontario, providing a 50% APC reduction for eligible corresponding authors submitting from 1 January 2026. Please read more.

13 Feb 2026 University of Western Ontario partners with Copernicus Publications to support open-access publishing

Copernicus Publications has signed a new agreement with Western Libraries at the University of Western Ontario, providing a 50% APC reduction for eligible corresponding authors submitting from 1 January 2026. Please read more.

03 Dec 2025 New MS Word template available for manuscript preparation

The existing MS Word template for authors has been significantly expanded and now includes many important notes on the standard sections that must be included in the manuscript. Please visit the "Submission" page, section "Templates for your manuscript file" and download the new template before writing your next manuscript.

03 Dec 2025 New MS Word template available for manuscript preparation

The existing MS Word template for authors has been significantly expanded and now includes many important notes on the standard sections that must be included in the manuscript. Please visit the "Submission" page, section "Templates for your manuscript file" and download the new template before writing your next manuscript.

21 Aug 2025 The JapanFlux2024 dataset for eddy covariance observations covering Japan and East Asia from 1990 to 2023

The JapanFlux2024 dataset, created through collaboration across Japan and East Asia, includes eddy covariance data from 83 sites spanning 683 site-years (1990–2023). Please read more.

21 Aug 2025 The JapanFlux2024 dataset for eddy covariance observations covering Japan and East Asia from 1990 to 2023

The JapanFlux2024 dataset, created through collaboration across Japan and East Asia, includes eddy covariance data from 83 sites spanning 683 site-years (1990–2023). Please read more.

Recent papers

24 Feb 2026
Synthesis of data products for ocean carbonate chemistry
Li-Qing Jiang, Amanda Fay, Jens Daniel Müller, Luke Gregor, Alizée Roobaert, Lydia Keppler, Dustin Carroll, Siv K. Lauvset, Tim DeVries, Judith Hauck, Christian Rödenbeck, Nicolas Metzl, Andrea J. Fassbender, Jean-Pierre Gattuso, Peter Landschützer, Rik Wanninkhof, Christopher Sabine, Simone R. Alin, Mario Hoppema, Are Olsen, Matthew P. Humphreys, Kunal Chakraborty, Ana C. Franco, Kumiko Azetsu-Scott, Dorothee C. E. Bakker, Leticia Barbero, Nicholas R. Bates, Nicole Besemer, Henry C. Bittig, Albert E. Boyd, Daniel Broullón, Wei-Jun Cai, Brendan R. Carter, Thi-Tuyet-Trang Chau, Chen-Tung Arthur Chen, Frédéric Cyr, John E. Dore, Ian Enochs, Richard A. Feely, Hernan E. Garcia, Marion Gehlen, Prasanna Kanti Ghoshal, Lucas Gloege, Melchor González-Dávila, Nicolas Gruber, Debby Ianson, Yosuke Iida, Masao Ishii, Apurva Padamnabh Joshi, Esther Kennedy, Alex Kozyr, Nico Lange, Claire Lo Monaco, Derek P. Manzello, Galen A. McKinley, Natalie M. Monacci, Xose A. Padin, Ana M. Palacio-Castro, Fiz F. Pérez, J. Magdalena Santana-Casiano, Jonathan Sharp, Adrienne Sutton, Jim Swift, Toste Tanhua, Maciej Telszewski, Jens Terhaar, Ruben van Hooidonk, Anton Velo, Andrew J. Watson, Angelicque E. White, Zelun Wu, Liang Xue, Hyelim Yoo, Jiye Zeng, and Guorong Zhong
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 18, 1405–1462, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-1405-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-1405-2026, 2026
Short summary
24 Feb 2026
GlobalGeoTree: a multi-granular vision-language dataset for global tree species classification
Yang Mu, Zhitong Xiong, Yi Wang, Muhammad Shahzad, Franz Essl, Holger Kreft, Mark van Kleunen, and Xiao Xiang Zhu
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 18, 1379–1403, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-1379-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-1379-2026, 2026
Short summary
24 Feb 2026
A Global Database of Soil Methane uptake (SMUD)
Jiawei Jiang, Zhifeng Yan, Jinshi Jian, Jesper Riis Christiansen, Xinchu Wang, Ren-Min Yang, Zhen Zhang, and Philippe Ciais
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-48,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-48, 2026
Preprint under review for ESSD (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
24 Feb 2026
MEthane Tracking Emissions Reference (METER): A global database of methane-emitting infrastructure
Robert B. Jackson, Jeremy A. Irvin, Neel Ramachandran, Chenghao Wang, Zutao Ouyang, Paul A. Tulloch, Frankie Y. Liu, and Andrew Y. Ng
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-124,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-124, 2026
Preprint under review for ESSD (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
23 Feb 2026
A gridded (0.1°  ×  0.1°) methane emission dataset for India for 2023 to redefine global climate studies
Ashirbad Mishra, Poonam Mangaraj, Pallavi Sahoo, Gufran Beig, Rajesh Janardanan, and Saroj Kumar Sahu
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 18, 1367–1378, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-1367-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-1367-2026, 2026
Short summary

Notice on the current situation in Ukraine

To show our support for Ukraine, all fees for papers from authors (first or corresponding authors) affiliated to Ukrainian institutions are automatically waived, regardless if these papers are co-authored by scientists affiliated to Russian and/or Belarusian institutions. The only exception will be if the corresponding author or first contact (contractual partner of Copernicus) are from a Russian and/or Belarusian institution, in that case the APCs are not waived.

In accordance with current European restrictions, Copernicus Publications does not step into business relations with and issue APC-invoices (articles processing charges) to Russian and Belarusian institutions. The peer-review process and scientific exchange of our journals including preprint posting is not affected. However, these restrictions require that the first contact (contractual partner of Copernicus) has an affiliation and invoice address outside Russia or Belarus.