<br>This release consists of flux tower measurements of the exchange of energy and mass between the surface and the atmospheric boundary-layer using eddy covariance techniques. Data were processed using PyFluxPro (v3.4.7) as described by Isaac et al. (2017). PyFluxPro produces a final, gap-filled product with Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) partitioned into Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) and Ecosystem Respiration (ER).</br> <br>The Cumberland Plain flux station is located in a dry sclerophyll forest. The Cumberland Plain Woodland is now an endangered ecological community that encompasses distinct groupings of plants growing on clayey soils. The canopy is dominated by <em>Eucalyptus moluccana</em> and <em>Eucalyptus fibrosa</em>, which host an expanding population of mistletoe. Average canopy height is 23&nbsp;m, the elevation of the site is 20&nbsp;m and mean annual precipitation is 800&nbsp;mm. Fluxes of water vapour, carbon dioxide and heat are quantified with the open-path eddy flux technique from a 30&nbsp;m tall mast. Additional measurements above the canopy include temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, rainfall, incoming and reflected shortwave and longwave radiation and net, diffuse and direct radiation and the photochemical reflectance index. In addition, profiles of humidity and CO₂ are measured at eight levels within the canopy, as well as measurements of soil moisture content, soil heat fluxes, soil temperature, and 10&nbsp;hr fuel moisture dynamics. In addition, regular monitoring of understory species abundance, mistletoe infection, leaf area index and litterfall are also performed.

Daily top-layer (~ 0-2 cm) soil moisture derived from ASCAT sensor aboard Metop-A. The data are from the TUW (Technical University of Vienna) and derived using the time series approach of Wagner, Wolfgang; Lemoine, Guido; Rott, Helmut (1999): A method for estimating soil moisture from ERS scatterometer and soil data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 70(2), 191-207, doi:10.1016/S0034-4257(99)00036-X. The daily product is generated for Australia using the average of ascending and descending passes. The data are resampled using nearest neighbour resampling to 0.05 degree resolution for the whole country.

Modelled daily average canopy conductance (mm per second, averaged over a day) using the Australian Water Resources Assessment model via assimilation of satellite soil moisture products: 2.5th percentile of the ensemble of model estimates. Note that the data represents the mean of an ensemble of 100 modelled estimates for each data derived via perturbed meteorological forcing. Resolution of the output data is 0.05-degree for the whole country.

Modelled daily average canopy conductance (mm per second, averaged over a day) using the Australian Water Resources Assessment model via assimilation of satellite soil moisture products: 97.5th percentile of the ensemble of model estimates. Note that the data represents the mean of an ensemble of 100 modelled estimates for each data derived via perturbed meteorological forcing. Resolution of the output data is 0.05-degree for the whole country.

Monthly mean total precipitation for the Australian continent between 1976-2005. Modelled by fitting a trivariate thin plate smoothing spline function of longitude, latitude and vertically exaggerated elevation to the square roots of observed and estimated monthly 1976-2005 rainfall means at 11,697 Bureau of Meteorology stations. Missing monthly precipitation values were estimated by regression with the long term station that provided estimates of the 1976-2005 monthly means with with the least standard error. This was applied to each station with at least 10 years of record between 1931 and 2012. Automated quality controls were applied to the regression process to remove poor quality data. Thus, an average of 66 values per month were removed, giving an average of 11631 data points for each month. These were commonly associated with stations with an old or short period of record, or with an imprecise location. Station elevations were 0.05 degree local averages of grid values from the GEODATA 9 second DEM version 3 as provided by eMAST_ANUClimate_fx_el05_v1m0. The mean absolute error of individual cross validation residuals provided by the spline analysis at 3518 stations with near complete records, of at least 28 years, is 3.9 mm (6.6% of the mean). A comprehensive assessment of the analysis and the factors contributing to the quality of the final interpolated monthly mean precipitation grids is in preparation.

Annual mean temperature for the Australian continent. Modelled using eMAST-R-Package 2.0

Precipitation of warmest quarter for the Australian continent. Warmest quarter is the set of 3 consecutive months for which the mean temperature over the selected period is higher than any other set of 3 consecutive months. Modelled using eMAST-R-Package 2.0

Digital Elevation Model (DEM) locally averaged to 0.05 degree resolution and resampled to 0.01 degree resolution. This is used to support spatial modelling of precipitation and related surface processes that have a coarser resolution interaction with surface topography (Sharples et al. 2005). Derived by calculating a 0.05 degree DEM consisting of 0.05 degree local averages of values from the GEODATA 9 second DEM version 3 (Hutchinson et al. 2008). These 0.05 degree grid values were then smoothly resampled to 0.01 degree resolution using biquadratic spline interpolation.

Mean temperature of coldest quarter for the Australian continent. Coldest quarter is the set of 3 consecutive months for which the mean temperature over the selected period is lower than any other set of 3 consecutive months. Modelled using eMAST-R-Package 2.0

ASCAT collection