Global Soil Bioclimatic Variables: Temperature and Seasonality Layers

Global soil bioclimatic variables provide 11 standard bioclimatic indices derived from soil temperature at two depth intervals (0-5 cm and 5-15 cm). The dataset includes annual means, temperature ranges, seasonality metrics, and statistics for the warmest, coldest, wettest, and driest quarters, calculated from monthly soil temperature layers spanning 1979-2013. These 30 arc-second resolution raster layers are available as Google Earth Engine assets and monthly temperature maps.

Use Cases

• Modeling soil microbial activity and decomposition rates based on annual mean temperature and temperature seasonality.
• Assessing plant root zone climate suitability using temperature metrics for the warmest and coldest quarters.
• Calibrating earth system models with soil-specific temperature ranges and diurnal variability.
• Studying mismatches between soil and air temperature for ecological forecasting.

Strengths

• Provides data for two specific soil depth intervals (0-5 cm and 5-15 cm), relevant for surface and shallow root processes.
• Includes 11 standardized bioclimatic variables (SBIO1-SBIO11) plus monthly temperature maps, offering multiple derived metrics.
• Based on a long-term climate data record (1979-2013) from the CHELSA dataset.
• Available on multiple platforms including Google Earth Engine, facilitating cloud-based analysis.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as spatial resolution, row count, file size, and specific update dates are not provided in the available sources.
• The temporal coverage (1979-2013) may not include recent years, limiting analysis of contemporary climate trends.
• The description references two different Google Earth Engine asset version paths (v1 and v2), suggesting potential version conflicts or updates not detailed.

Provenance

Source

ETH Zurich (Crowther Lab), derived from CHELSA monthly air-temperature maps.

Collection Method

Soil temperature layers were calculated by adding monthly soil temperature offsets to CHELSA air-temperature maps, then used to derive bioclimatic indices.

Time Range

1979 to 2013

Geography

Global