New ARM Best Estimate Land Product Contains Critical Soil Quantities for Describing Land Properties

Published: 19 September 2013

The ARM Best Estimate: Land (ARMBELAND) value-added prduct (VAP) is a subset of the ARM Best Estimate (ARMBE) products designed to support community land-atmospheric research and land model developments. It contains several critical soil quantities that ARM has been measuring for many years for describing land properties. The quantities in ARMBELAND are averaged over a one-hour time interval, consistent with other ARMBE data sets.

It is recommended to use ARMBELAND with other ARMBE data products such as ARM Best Estimate Cloud and Radiative Fluxes (ARMBECLDRAD) and ARM Best Estimate Atmospheric Measurements (ARMBEATM) to obtain a more complete description of the land condition and its associated large-scale environment.

ARMBELAND data are currently available for the ARM Southern Great Plains (SGP) Central Facility site for particular periods, as listed below. The product will be extended to other sites covered by the ARM SGP surface network so that the spatial variability of these quantities can be described. Currently, ARMBELAND contains the following quantities:

• Soil temperature measured from carbon dioxide flux measurement systems (CO2FLX), energy balance Bowen ratio station (EBBR), and soil water and temperature system (SWATS)
• Soil moisture content measured from CO2FLX, EBBR, and SWATS
• Soil heat flux from CO2FLX and EBBR
• CO2 flux from CO2FLX
• CO2 density from CO2FLX
• Friction velocity from CO2FX
• Photosynthetic photon flux density (PAR) from CO2FLX.

Data availability:

• Quantities from CO2FLX : 2003–2012
• Quantities from EBBR: 1994–2012
• Quantities from SWATS: 1996–2012

More information on ARMBELAND is available at the VAP web page and in the README file that accompanies the data files in the Data Archive’s evaluation area.

To access these data, log in to the Data Archive. (Go here to request an account.)