GIS tool to predict photosynthetically active radiation in a Dry Valley

© Antarctic Science Ltd 2020 Understanding primary productivity is a core research area of the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research Network. This study presents the development of the GIS-based Topographic Solar Photosynthetically Active Radiation (T-sPAR) toolbox for Tay...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Antarctic Science
Main Authors: Acosta, Dimitri, Doran, Peter T., Myers, Madeline
Format: Text
Language:unknown
Published: LSU Digital Commons 2020
Subjects:
ArcMap
Automated weather station
Digital elevation model
Ice-covered lakes
McMurdo Dry Valleys
R model
Taylor Valley
Antarctic
Fryxell
Hoare
Lake Fryxell
Lake Hoare
Antarc*
Online Access:https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/geo_pubs/576
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954102020000218
https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/context/geo_pubs/article/1575/viewcontent/576.pdf
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Summary:© Antarctic Science Ltd 2020 Understanding primary productivity is a core research area of the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research Network. This study presents the development of the GIS-based Topographic Solar Photosynthetically Active Radiation (T-sPAR) toolbox for Taylor Valley. It maps surface photosynthetically active radiation using four meteorological stations with ∼20 years of data. T-sPAR estimates were validated with ground-truth data collected at Taylor Valley's major lakes during the 2014-15 and 2015-16 field seasons. The average daily error ranges from 0.13 mol photons m-2 day-1 (0.6%) at Lake Fryxell to 3.8 mol photons m-2 day-1 (5.8%) at Lake Hoare. We attribute error to variability in terrain and sun position. Finally, a user interface was developed in order to estimate total daily surface photosynthetically active radiation for any location and date within the basin. T-sPAR improves upon existing toolboxes and models by allowing for the inclusion of a statistical treatment of light attenuation due to cloud cover. The T-sPAR toolbox could be used to inform biological sampling sites based on radiation distribution, which could collectively improve estimates of net primary productivity, in some cases by up to 25%.

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