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

25 Feb 2026
More than a century of oceanic hydrography observations reveals profound climate-related changes in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and its Arctic Gateways
Jonathan Coyne, Frédéric Cyr, Sheila Atchison, Charlie Bishop, Sébastien Donnet, Peter S. Galbraith, Maxime Geoffroy, David Hebert, Chantelle Layton, Andry Ratsimandresy, Jose-Luis del Rio Iglesias, Jean-Luc Shaw, Stephen Snook, Nancy Soontiens, Elena Tel, and Wojciech Walkusz
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 18, 1463–1488, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-1463-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-1463-2026, 2026
Short summary
25 Feb 2026
Constructing a SWOT Internal Wave Dataset Using Deep Learning
Xinyuan Xi, Jiahui Chen, Ge Chen, Yuemei Li, Chunyong Ma, and Yijie Gai
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-822,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-822, 2026
Preprint under review for ESSD (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
25 Feb 2026
A benchmark dataset of water levels and waves for SWOT validation in the St. Lawrence Estuary and Saguenay Fjord, Quebec, Canada
Pascal Matte, Xavier Chartrand, David Purnell, Marc Simard, Alexandra Christensen, Francis Fortin-Legault, Jonathan Morin, Yann Côté-Nadeau, Élaine Desrosiers, Anthony Ouellet, Cédric Chavanne, François Anctil, Gabriela Siles, Scott Bedart, Silvia Innocenti, Mohammed Dabboor, Daniel L. Peters, and Mélanie Trudel
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-30,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-30, 2026
Preprint under review for ESSD (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
25 Feb 2026
Annual 10-m high-resolution cropland maps for Southeast Asia since 2019 using AlphaEarth embeddings
Yaotong Cai, Baoni Li, Xiaoye Liu, Xin Jiang, Yakun Zhu, Shuxin Luo, Yingzuo Qin, Shudi Xie, Jianhuai Ye, Huizhong Shen, Zhilin Guo, Xiaoping Liu, and Zhenzhong Zeng
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-78,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-78, 2026
Preprint under review for ESSD (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
25 Feb 2026
Development of a global in-situ daily temperature dataset preferentially for 0000–2400 UTC from 1981–2024
Su Yang, Panmao Zhai, Xuebin Zhang, and Zijiang Zhou
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-771,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-771, 2026
Preprint under review for ESSD (discussion: open, 0 comments)
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.