I am looking for datasets of size greater than 1 GB for a graduate academic project.<p>Datasets which are publicly available (or available upon request) and contain location-data and/or vary over a period of time.
Try <a href="http://academictorrents.com/" rel="nofollow">http://academictorrents.com/</a>
See also the comments in <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7149006" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7149006</a>
Historical weather would fit your description. The NOAA has a large collection going back a century or more from different weather stations.<p>ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/
Openstreetmap?<p>Not sure that is the sort of data you want. In the U.S., lots of states and the federal government also have extensive geographical data sets (so you mind find one with a theme you are more interested in).
Look for the following:<p>Census data<p>Maybe wikipedia's data is available?<p>Is there some open search engine, which gives its data free?<p>There could be more but I'm tired and this will hopefully be of help.