Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1‐km²resolution for 0–5 and 5–15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1‐km²pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse‐grained air temperature estimates from ERA5‐Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (−0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome‐specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near‐surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil‐related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications.

Rapid warming of the Antarctic Peninsula is producing accelerated glacier mass loss and can be expected to have significant impacts on meltwater runoff regimes and proglacial fluvial activity. This study presents analysis of the hydrology and suspended sediment dynamics of two proglacial streams on James Ross Island, Antarctic Peninsula. Mean water discharge during 8 January 2015 to 18 February 2015 reached 0.19 m³ s⁻¹ and 0.06 m³ s⁻¹ for Bohemian Stream and Algal Stream, respectively, equivalent to specific runoff of 76 and 60 mm month⁻¹. The daily discharge regime strongly correlated with air and ground temperatures. The effect of global radiation on proglacial water discharge was found low to negligible. Suspended sediment concentrations of Bohemian Stream were very high (up to 2927 mg L⁻¹) due to aeolian supply and due to the high erodibility of local rocks. Total sediment yield (186 t km⁻² yr⁻¹) was high for (nearly) deglaciated catchments, but relatively low in comparison with streams draining more glaciated alpine and arctic catchments. The sediment provenance was mostly local Cretaceous marine and aeolian sediments; volcanic rocks are not an important source for suspended load. High Rb/Sr ratios for some samples suggested chemical weathering. Overall, this monitoring of proglacial hydrological and suspended sediment dynamics contributes to the dearth of such data from Antarctic environments and offers an insight to the nature of the proglacial fluvial activity, which is likely to be in a transient state with ongoing climate change.

This paper presents the first results of measurements of global solar radiation, albedo, ground surface and 2-m air temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed and di- rection carried out in the central part of Spitsbergen Island in the period 2008-2010. The study site was located on the coastal ice-free zone of Petuniabukta (north-western branch of Billefjorden), which was strongly affected by local topography, character of the ground sur- face, and sea ice extent. Temporal analysis of the selected meteorological parameters shows both strong seasonal and inter-diurnal variation affected by synoptic-scale weather systems, channelling and drainage effects of the fjords and surrounding glaciers. The prevailing pat- tern of atmospheric circulation primarily determined the variation in global solar radiation, wind speed, ground surface and 2-m air temperatures. Furthermore, it was found that ther- mal differences between Petuniabukta and the nearest meteorological station (Svalbard Lufthavn) differ significantly due to differences in sea ice concentrations and ice types in the fjords during the winter and spring months.