Soil Temperature Data from Four U.S. National Parks 2008-2021

GLORIA initiative soil temperature data from Great Sand Dunes, Rocky Mountain, and Yellowstone National Parks and Pecos National Forest. The dataset contains raw hourly measurements and daily, monthly, and yearly summaries from 2008 to 2021. It includes Python code for extracting data from the National Park Service Aquarius system.

Use Cases

• Analyze hourly soil temperature trends across alpine sites like Yellowstone National Park to study climate change impacts.
• Compare daily and monthly temperature summaries between Great Sand Dunes and Rocky Mountain National Parks for ecological modeling.
• Use the provided Python code to replicate data extraction from the Aquarius system for custom temporal aggregations.
• Correlate soil temperature data from Pecos National Forest with other Alpine Vegetation Data Package metrics.

Strengths

• Data spans 13 years from 2008 to 2021, providing a long-term climate record.
• Includes multiple temporal aggregations: raw hourly, daily, monthly, and yearly summaries.
• Covers four distinct alpine and park environments in the United States.
• Provides the original Python code for data extraction, ensuring methodological transparency.

Limitations

• The raw data volume and row count are unspecified, making scale assessment difficult.
• Limited to four specific park and forest locations, which may not represent broader alpine regions.
• Data relies on temperature loggers which may have gaps or sensor drift over the 13-year period.

Provenance

Source

Department of the Interior, National Park Service Aquarius data system.

Collection Method

Temperature logger data extracted and summarized using provided Python code.

Time Range

2008 to 2021

Freshness

Dataset metadata was updated in March 2026, but the core time series ends in 2021.

Geography

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and Pecos National Forest in the United States.