Microclimate observations associated with snowmelt experiment gradient sites, East River, Colorado, 2017 to 2020

Creators: Heidi Steltzer ORCID, Chelsea Wilmer ORCID, Amanda Henderson

Year: 2021

License: CC-BY 4.0

Location: The East River (ER) is a snow‐dominated, headwater basin of the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) located in the western United States. The ER is the designated testbed of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area (WFSFA). Through WFSFA, observational networks have been established to measure stream discharge and precipitation chemistry. The ER is considered representative of many snow‐dominated headwaters of the Rocky Mountains. The study domain encompasses nearly 85 square km, a 1.4‐km vertical drop in elevation (4,120 to 2,760 m) and pristine alpine, subalpine, montane, and riparian ecosystems. The ER contains high‐energy mountain streams to low‐energy meandering floodplains and is eroding primarily into the Cretaceous, carbon‐rich, marine shale of the Mancos Formation. Additional metadata on specific locations within the watershed are provided in the following related data package: Varadharajan C. et al. (2020) doi:10.15485/1660962

Temporal extent: 2017-05-26 to 2020-10-23

Bounding box: 38.880°N to 39.034°N, -107.050°W to -106.880°W

Publisher: ESS_DIVE

Tags: elevation gradient, soil temperature, soil water content, paired-plot design, CATEGORICAL:NONE Air Temperature, Relative Humidity, Soil Moisture, Soil Temperature, Alpine & Subalpine Ecology, Plant Biology, Hydrology & Watersheds, Snow & Ice, Groundwater, Geology & Tectonics, Soil Science, Weather & Atmospheric Science, Field Methods & Monitoring, Gunnison Basin, Research Programs

Description

The timing of snowmelt in mountain systems is a main driver of vegetation phenology and production, as well as recharge of soil moisture and ground water. Decreases in maximum snowpack and warmer spring temperatures have led to a higher frequency of early snowmelt. This study combines a natural elevation gradient with an experimental manipulation of snowmelt timing to assess the effect of earlier melt on hillslope and watershed ecohydrological processes. This data package includes csv files with plot and sub-plot level observations of soil temperature (SM_ST.csv), soil moisture (SM_SWC.csv), air temperature (SM_AirT.csv), and relative humidity (SM_rH.csv). The date range of this dataset includes a pre-treatment year (2017), two treatment years (2018 and 2019), and a post-treatment year (2020). Location IDs associated with this data package are: ER-LM, WG-UM, WG-LS, ER-US, and XX-AL. Related data packages include: “Colorado Elevation Gradient Snowmelt Manipulation Plant Phenology 2017-2018” and “Sensor-based phenology from snowmelt experiment gradient, East River, Colorado, 2017 to 2020”

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