Qilian Mountains integrated observatory network: Dataset of Qinghai Lake integrated observatory network (eddy covariance system of Alpine meadow and grassland ecosystem Superstation, 2018)

This dataset contains the flux measurements from the Alpine meadow and grassland ecosystem Superstation superstation eddy covariance system (EC) belonging to the Qinghai Lake basin integrated observatory network from September 2 to December 18 in 2018. The site (98°35′41.62″E, 37°42′11.47″N) was located in the alpine meadow and alpine grassland ecosystem, near the SuGe Road in Tianjun County, Qinghai Province. The elevation is 3718m. The EC was installed at a height of 4.5 m, and the sampling rate was 10 Hz. The sonic anemometer faced north, and the separation distance between the sonic anemometer and the CO2/H2O gas analyzer (CSAT3A &EC150) was about 0.17 m. The raw data acquired at 10 Hz were processed using the Eddypro post-processing software, including the spike detection, lag correction of H2O/CO2 relative to the vertical wind component, sonic virtual temperature correction, coordinate rotation (2-D rotation), corrections for density fluctuation (Webb-Pearman-Leuning correction), and frequency response correction. The EC data were subsequently averaged over 30 min periods. The observation data quality was divided into three classes according to the quality assessment method of stationarity (Δst) and the integral turbulent characteristics test (ITC): class 1-3 (high quality), class 4-6 (good), class 7-8 (poor, better than gap filling data), class9 (rejected). In addition to the above processing steps, the half-hourly flux data were screened in a four-step procedure: (1) data from periods of sensor malfunction were rejected; (2) data collected before or after 1 h of precipitation were rejected; (3) incomplete 30 min data were rejected when the missing data constituted more than 3% of the 30 min raw record; and (4) data were rejected at night when the friction velocity (u*) was less than 0.1 m/s. There were 48 records per day, and the missing data were replaced with -6999. Data during December 18 to December 24, 2018 were missing due to the data collector failure. The released data contained the following variables: data/time, wind direction (Wdir, °), wind speed (Wnd, m/s), the standard deviation of the lateral wind (Std_Uy, m/s), virtual temperature (Tv, ℃), H2O mass density (H2O, g/m3), CO2 mass density (CO2, mg/m3), friction velocity (ustar, m/s), stability (z/L), sensible heat flux (Hs, W/m2), latent heat flux (LE, W/m2), carbon dioxide flux (Fc, mg/ (m2s)), quality assessment of the sensible heat flux (QA_Hs), quality assessment of the latent heat flux (QA_LE), and quality assessment of the carbon flux (QA_Fc). In this dataset, the time of 0:30 corresponds to the average data for the period between 0:00 and 0:30; the data were stored in *.xls format. Detailed information can be found in the suggested references.

2020-07-25