Hourly weather data from the Arctic LTER Moist Acidic Tussock Experimental plots from 2011 to present, Toolik Filed Station, North Slope, Alaska.

Abstract: 

Hourly weather data from the LTER Moist Acidic Tussock Experimental plots. The station was installed in 1990 in block 2 of the Toolik LTER experimental moist acidic tussock plots. The plots are located on a hillside near Toolik Lake (68 38' N, 149 36'W). Global solar radiation, photosynthetic active radiation, unfrozen precipitation, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and wind direction are measured at 3 meters. Additional sensors in greenhouses and shade houses plots measure air temperature, relative humidity and photosynthetic active radiation during the growing season. The sensors are read every minute and averaged or totaled every hour.

Project Keywords: 

Data set ID: 

10405

EML revision ID: 

4
Published on EDI/LTER Data Portal

Citation: 

Shaver, G. 2019. Hourly weather data from the Arctic LTER Moist Acidic Tussock Experimental plots from 2011 to present, Toolik Filed Station, North Slope, Alaska. Environmental Data Initiative. http://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/0bdf6cd129910f7b43a538777c221367
People

Owner/Creator: 

Contact: 

Additional People: 

Associated Researcher
Dates

Date Range: 

Saturday, January 1, 2011 to Monday, December 31, 2018

Publication Date: 

2019

Methods: 

  In 1990 a data logger and sensors were installed at block 2 of  the Moist Acidic Tundra (MAT) site at Toolik Field Station Long Term Ecological Research Site (LTER) to monitor weather and soil temperatures. Please see temperature soil files for soil temperature information .

Climatic conditions were measured in plots covered by green houses, shade coverage and control non-disturbed plots.

For sensor and column labels CT = Control, GH = Greenhouse and SH = shade house. Note that shade cloth and plastic greenhouse material are attached to a permanent frame structure every spring (early to mid June) and removed in late August each year. Thus temperature measurements in the control plot may be representative of all three sites when the covers are not present.

Sensors in the control plot include: global solar radiation, photosynthetic active radiation, unfrozen precipitation, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and wind direction at 3 meters. Additional sensors in greenhouses and shade houses plots measure air temperature, relative humidity and photosynthetic active radiation during the growing season. These sensors are read every minute and averaged or totaled every hour.

Hourly and daily summaries are in files yyyy-yyyy_SiteCode_WeatherHourly and  yyyy-yyyy_SiteCode_WeatherDaily respectively, where yy is the year in which the data are collected. The original data is archived at The Marine Biological Lab, Woods Hole, MA.
  
NOTES:

-IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING WINTER and LATE FALL/EARLY SPRING: Instruments are NOT maintained from Mid August (actual date varies by year) to Mid June (date also varies by year). SENSORS MAY BE COVERED WITH SNOW and/or FROZEN. Blatantly erroneous has been removed however all data from winter months must be used with caution.
 -The covers on greenhouses and shade houses are removed every fall and reinstalled every spring as described above.
-Only unfrozen precipitation is reported.
-Soil temperatures are problematic since frost heaving of the probes caused depth of measurements to change.
-For the global solar radiation and photosynthetic active radiation sensors no attempt is made to correct for frost or snow on the sensors during the winter months.  Therefore winter radiation data should be view as suspect and used only qualitatively.

CALCULATIONS:

DAYS:  JULIAN + (HOUR/2400)

VAPOR PRESS :   If Air Temp > 0 then  (RH 5M/100) * 6.1121 * exp(17.368 * AIR TEMP 5M/(238.88 + AIR TEMP 5M))

  If Air Temp < 0 then (RH 5M/100) * 6.1121 * exp(17.966 * AIR TEMP 5M/(238.88 + AIR TEMP 5M))

PYR TOTAL CM2 HOUR:  PYRANOMETER * 0.3600 jcm2 * 1000 Watt/Kwatt

GQUANT E m2  Average (north and south quantum sensors) *60 sec *60 min * 10^-6 E/uE

GQUANT E m2  Average (north and south quantum sensors) *60 sec *60 min * 10^-6 E/uE

GQUANT E m2  Control quantum sensor *60 sec *60 min * 10^-6 E/uE

Sensor errors, erroneous data and values outside the instrument range  are indicated by #N/A. Due to changes in sensor locations over time '.' have been added in years where sensors were not present. Prior to 1995 some sensors had duplicates where one was placed in the north end of the plot (indicated by N) and the other in the South (S). From 1995 onward these were replaced with a single sensor in the center of the plot. The columns for N & S were continued in later years despite no data to ease with analysis if multiple years were to be compared.  

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Sensor Description

Following are brief descriptions of the sensors used at the weather monitoring station. Included with each description is a list of stations using the sensor and the number of sensors at that site. Company addresses follow the list.
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PYRANOMETER:
Li-Cor, Pyranometer: Model LI-200SA-  Sensor measures global solar radiation (sun plus sky).  Specs: Sensitivity - 80mA per 1000 Watts m-2. Absolute error max ±5% but typically ±3
QUANTUM:
Li-Cor, Quantum. Model LI-190SB. Quantum measure photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) in mmol s-1 m-2. Specs: range 400-700nm wavelength. Sensitivity 8mA/1000 mmol s-1 m-2.  Relative error less then ±10% for plant canopies or less then ±5% for growth chambers. Toolik.
RELATIVE HUMIDITY/TEMPERATURE:
Campbell Scientific, CS500 Temperature and Relative Humidity Probe. Uses PRT for temperature measurement; capacitive RH chip for RH. Accuracy is ±3% over 10-90% RH; ±6% over 90-100% RH. Manufactured by Vaisala, Inc.
WIND DIRECTION:
MET-ONE, (supplied by Campbell Scientific) Wind direction use a light weight, air foil vane and a potentiometer to produce an output that varies proportional with wind direction. Specs: Minimum Wind speed to get accurate reading = 1.0 mph. Accuracy ±5° Temperature range -50 to 70°C.
WIND SPEED:
MET-ONE, (supplied by Campbell Scientific) Wind speed sensor Model 014A. Sensor uses a 3-cup anemometer assembly and simple magnet-read switch assembly to produce a series of contact closures whose frequency is proportional to wind speed. Specs: Operating Range - 0 to 125 mph or 0-60 m/s. Accuracy ±1.5% or 0.25 mph. Working temperature range - -50 to 85°C
RAIN GAUGE:
Texas Electronics, Inc. (supplied by Campbell Scientific) Tipping Bucket Electric Rain Gauge. A complex spun collector funnel with a knife edge that diverts the water to a tipping bucket mechanism. For each tip a magnet causes an electronic pulse that is recorded. Each alternate tip occurs for each 0.01 inch of rainfall. Specs: Accuracy 1% at 2 inches/hr or less. Accurate Temperature Range: 0 - 37°C.  Alter wind shield installed around gauge.
THERMOCOUPLES:
Omega Engineering, Copper-Constantan wire. Range -200 to 350 °C. Limits of error: Standard wire 1.0°C or 0.75% above 0°C and 1.0°C or 1.5% below 0°C. Special wire 0.5°C or 0.4%.
List of manufactories and suppliers.
Campbell Scientific, Inc.
81 W. 1800 N.
Logan, Utah 84321-1784
(435)750-1739

Li-Cor : 4421 Superior St, P.O. Box 4425, Lincoln, Nebraska 68504     (800)447-3576

Omega Engineering, Inc. P.O. Box 4047, Stamford, CT 06907-0047 (800)826-6342

Reference Citations: Buck, A.L. 1981 New equations for computing vapor pressure and enhancement factor. Journal of Applied Meteorology 20:1527-1532.

Notes and comments

 August 2012:

Replace 21x logger with CR23x and added 107 reference temperature probes to multiplexers.

Replaced the old blue wire TC (which was string 1 in each plot; string 2 was already Omega wire) with either the Campbell TC wire ( NP1) or the Omega TC Wire.  Procedure was to trace back the pipe with the blue wire cutting the tape where the Omega wire was taped to the outside of the pipe.  Pull the Omega wire back to the plot end of the pipe. This was difficult since the pipe and wire was overgrown in place to 10 - 20cms.  Then if all the wires were Omega TC then tape the wires to the blue wire and pull the wires through back to the logger.  Before removing the blue wires and resetting string 2 the current depths of the wires were recorded.  The wires were then placed at 10, 20, 40 cm in the side of a dug hole.  In most cases I was able to push the wire in about 5cm. But some 40 cm were at the ice layer so I was not able to get it into the side wall but laid it on the bottom of the hole.  The tundra was very wet so the hole filled fast.

Relaced the quatum sensor on Aug 13, 2012.  Previous to the 13th the control quatum sensor had a -52 offset.  Data was was corrected.

Aug 2016

Replaced Pyranometer and quantum sensors (CT-Py7361; GH-Q45073; SH-Q45080; CT- Q13023)

2017

Greenhouse quatum (GQunat) is reading high.  it most likey was not level. Deleted data.

Version Changes: 

November 2013: Entered metadata into worksheet, updated columns to reflect past years. Oct 2015 updated to 2014; corrected radiation sensors for negative values or wrong multiplier. Deleted winter values for radiation and tipping precipitation sensor. Jim L
Version 2: Changed Distribution URL since the LTER network DAS system is being discontinued. JimL 9Apr2015
Moved to new web site. 26Apr2016
Version 3: Updated to 2018 Jim L May 2019
Version 4: Corrected link to Excel data file, it was pointing to the wrong file. Corrected start date of temporal coverage from 1/1/2010 to 1/1/2011 BK. May 2019

Sites sampled.

Full Metadata and data files (either comma delimited (csv) or Excel) - Environmental Data Initiative repository.

Use of the data requires acceptance of the data use policy --> Arctic LTER Data Use Policy