Arctic Tundra Soil and Meteorological Data from Toolik Lake

Daily meteorological and soil temperature data were collected from the Toolik Lake area of Alaska between 1998 and 2002. The dataset includes 28 files with measurements from two research sites: a tundra monitoring site and experimental plots with fertilized and unfertilized greenhouse areas. This subset was produced by the Arctic LTER and funded by the NASA Arctic System Sciences Program.

Use Cases

• Analyzing soil temperature profiles down to 150 cm to study permafrost thaw dynamics.
• Correlating daily air temperature (1-5m) and wind speed with soil thermal regimes.
• Comparing meteorological conditions (vapor pressure, global radiation) between natural tundra and manipulated experimental plots.
• Investigating the impact of fertilization and shading treatments on subsurface soil temperatures in greenhouse and 'shadehouse' areas.

Strengths

• Data spans a continuous 5-year period (1998-2002) for tracking seasonal and interannual variability.
• Includes detailed vertical soil temperature profiles measured at various intervals down to 150 cm depth.
• Contains measurements from both a natural tundra site and adjacent experimental plots with controlled treatments.

Limitations

• Exact row counts and column names are not provided by any source, limiting preliminary analysis.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date: one platform lists 2002-08-30, while another lists a future date of 2026-03 13.

Provenance

Source

Arctic Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program at Toolik Lake, Alaska, funded by NASA Arctic System Sciences (ARCSS) Program, grant OPP-9810222.

Collection Method

Data loggers recorded measurements at two field sites; data is stored in 28 comma-delimited ASCII text files.

Time Range

1998 to 2002

Freshness

2002-08-30 23:59:59.999000

Geography

Toolik Lake area, Alaska, USA.