Long-term monitoring of soil temperature data in tallgrass prairie.
LOCATION OF SAMPLING STATION
Headquarters weather station (grid C-16).
FREQUENCY OF SAMPLING
Continuous sampling from mid-April to October 31 of each year.
VARIABLES MEASURED
Prior to 1989, soil temperature at 2, 10, and 25 cm depth on unburned and annually burned plots. From 1989, the measurements were taken at 2 and 10 cm in burned and unburned plots and readings were taken at 2 and 10 cm in a clipped and burned (simulated grazed) plot. In 1992, the 25 cm measurement was moved to the CR- 10 associated with the weather station at headquarters (see data set AWE01).
METHODS A Campbell Scientific (CR-21) data logger continuously monitors soil temperature at the three depths on unburned, annually burned, and clipped plots. The soil probe used is a Campbell Scientific 101 thermistor probe. For further information on the CR-21 or thermistor probe, owners manuals are available in Bushnell Rm 205. The input and output program in the CR-21 are listed in Fig. 8a-d.
The data is stored on cassette tape which is read directly into an IBM PC and is available in four different formats:
AST011 = hourly data, every hour of each day soil temperature is recorded;
AST012 = Daily maximum temperature of each depth and burning treatment;
AST013 = Daily minimum temperature of each depth and burning treatment;
AST014 = Daily average temperature of each depth and burning treatment.