| Summary: | The research project will assist in investigations of year-around CH 4 (methane) and CO 2 (carbon dioxide) fluxes at three Alaskan Arctic sites (Utqiagvik, Atqasuk, and Ivotuk) across a latitudinal gradient of about 300 kilometers from the northern part of the Arctic Coastal Plain to the foothills of the Brooks Range, in Alaska. These measurements will be used to improve estimates of rates and patterns of and controls on annual greenhouse gas fluxes, with special contribution to understanding of the fall, winter and spring fluxes. The project focuses on the rates of CH 4 emissions during the fall, winter, and spring seasons, specifically during the "zero-curtain" when soil temperatures remain near 0 degrees Celsius. Around this time the soil column freezes from the top-down and bottom-up and our measurements are made to be able to measure the exact extent and duration of the zero-curtain in the soil. Further this dataset allows for a better characterization of the spring thaw and growing season soil temperatures. We hope that the data may also be able to address the size and conditions of the snowpack during the cold season as well as a full profile of winter-time soil and permafrost measurements. The data-set contains half-hourly mean soil temperatures and standard deviations of 1 Hz (hertz) readings at depths every 5-10 centimeters (cm) ranging from 85 cm above the soil surface to 100 cm below the soil surface. There are two profiles at each site, at the Atqasuk site, two polygon land-forms are represented, however the land-forms at Ivotuk and Utqiagvik were homogeneous so two profiles are redundancies. Measurements were taken using type E thermocouple and AM25T multiplexers with data recorded on either Control Datalogger 1000 (CR1000) or Control Datalogger 6 (CR6) data loggers from Campbell Scientific.
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