Long-term measurements of lake evaporation from Sparkling Lake, Wisconsin, calculated using energy budget and mass transfer techniques. Data includes hourly-averaged micrometeorological parameters like relative humidity, air temperature, wind velocity, water temperature, and radiation, collected via an instrumented raft and shore station. The dataset is maintained by the North Temperate Lakes (NTL) site, affiliated with the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Use Cases
- Model lake water budgets by integrating calculated evaporation rates with precipitation and inflow data.
- Calibrate mass transfer coefficients for Sparkling Lake using energy budget-derived evaporation estimates.
- Analyze diurnal and seasonal patterns in evaporation using hourly-averaged air temperature, humidity, and wind velocity data.
- Study the relationship between radiation (long-wave and short-wave) measurements and evaporation energy fluxes.
- Validate micrometeorological models using concurrent raft measurements at multiple heights (1m, 2m, 3m).
Strengths
- High-temporal-resolution data measured every minute and averaged to hourly periods.
- Multi-method validation with evaporation calculated via both energy budget and mass transfer techniques.
- Data collection focuses on a protected lake within a near-natural water quality region spanning approximately 10,000 sq. km.
Limitations
- Geographic scope is limited to a single lake (Sparkling Lake) in Wisconsin.
- Temporal coverage is restricted to ice-free seasons, missing winter data under ice cover.
- Unknown total row count and dataset size limits assessment of statistical power.
Provenance
- Source
- North Temperate Lakes (NTL) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- Collection Method
- Data collected via an instrumented raft measuring micrometeorological parameters, combined with radiation data from a shore station, recorded using Campbell dataloggers.
- Time Range
- Data collected over the ice-free season(s); specific start and end years unknown.
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Sparkling Lake, within the Northern Highland Lakes District, Wisconsin, USA.