Alice Springs Mulga Flux Data Release 2023_v1
<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 (v3.5.0) 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>Alice Springs Mulga flux station is located on Pine Hill cattle station, near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. The woodland is characterized by the <i>Acacia aneura</i> canopy, which is 6.5 m tall on average. Elevation of the site is 606 m above sea level, and the terrain is flat. Mean annual precipitation at the nearby (45 km distant) Bureau of Meteorology station is 305.9 mm but ranges between 100 mm in 2009 to 750 mm in 2010. Predominant wind directions are from the southeast and east. The extent of the woodland is 11 km to the east of the flux station and 16 km to the south. The soil is red sandy clay (50:50 sand:clay) overlying a 49 m deep water table. Pine Hill Station is a functioning cattle station that has been in operation for longer than 50 years. The instrument mast is 13.7 m tall. Fluxes of heat, water vapour and carbon are measured using the open-path eddy covariance technique at 11.6 m. Supplementary measurements above the canopy include temperature and humidity (11.6 m), windspeed and wind direction (9.25 m), downwelling and upwelling shortwave and longwave radiation (12.2 m). Precipitation is monitored in a canopy gap (2.5 m). Supplementary measurements within and below the canopy include barometric pressure (1 m), wind speed (2 m, 4.25 m and 6.5 m), and temperature and humidity (2 m, 4.25 m and 6 m). Below ground soil measurements are made in bare soil, mulga, and understory habitats and include ground heat flux (0.08 m), soil temperature (0.02 m – 0.06 m) and soil moisture (0 – 0.1 m, 0.1 – 0.3 m, 0.6 – 0.8 m and 1.0 – 1.2 m). Ancillary measurements include soil water and carbon fluxes, leaf water potential, leaf gas exchange, stem basal area, stem growth, litter production, leaf area index, stem hydraulic conductance, and carbon and water stable isotope ratios. <br />
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2023-03-31
- Date (Publication)
- 2023-04-27
- Date (Revision)
- 2025-12-10
- Edition
- 2023_v1
Identifier
Publisher
Author
James Cook University - Cleverly, Jamie ()
1 James Cook Drive, Bebegu Yumba campus, 4811, Douglas, Australia
Bebegu Yumba campus
Douglas
4811
Australia
Co-author
University of Technology Sydney - Eamus, Derek ()
15 Broadway, Ultimo, 2007, New South Wales, Australia
Ultimo
New South Wales
2007
Australia
Co-author
University of Technology Sydney - Faux, Ralph (Technical Officer)
15 Broadway, Ultimo, 2007, New South Wales, Australia
Ultimo
New South Wales
2007
Australia
Co-author
University of Technology Sydney - Grant, Nicole M (Site Technician)
15 Broadway, Ultimo, 2007, New South Wales, Australia
Ultimo
New South Wales
2007
Australia
Co-author
University of Technology Sydney - Li, Zheng ()
15 Broadway, Ultimo, 2007, New South Wales, Australia
Ultimo
New South Wales
2007
Australia
- Website
- https://www.tern.org.au/
- Purpose
- The purpose of the Alice Springs Mulga flux station is to: <ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>measure the exchanges of carbon dioxide, water vapour and energy between a semi-arid mulga (<i>Acacia aneura</i>) ecosystem and the atmosphere using micrometeorological techniques</li> <li>study ecosystem, hydrologic and ecophysiologic responses to rainfall variability</li> <li>evaluate the evapotranspiratory cost of assimilation</li> <li>study the partitioning of ecosystem metabolism between the mulga canopy, a seasonal mixed understory (C<sub>3</sub> and C<sub>4</sub>, grass and shrub) and soil components</li> <li>utilise the measurements for paramterising a Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Transfer (SVAT) model to evaluate climate change scenarios in North-Central Australia</li> <li>utilise the measurements for parameterising and validating remote sensing measurements over semi-arid mulga ecosystems</li> <li>utilise the measurements for parmaterising and validating the Community Atmosphere-Biosphere Land Exchange (CABLE) model.</li>
- Credit
- We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
- Credit
- The TERN Alice Springs Mulga site is managed by the University of Technology Sydney, and is funded by TERN.
- Status
- On going
Point of contact
James Cook University - Cleverly, Jamie ()
1 James Cook Drive, Bebegu Yumba campus, 4811, Douglas, Australia
1 James Cook Drive
Bebegu Yumba campus
Douglas
4811
Australia
- Topic category
-
- Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere
Extent
- Description
- Pine Hill cattle station, near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.
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Temporal extent
- Time period
- 2010-09-03
- Title
- Beringer J., Hutley L. B., McHugh I., Arndt S. K., Campbell D., Cleugh H. A., Cleverly J., Resco de Dios V., Eamus D., Evans B., Ewenz C., Grace P., Griebel A., Haverd V., Hinko-Najera N., Huete A., Isaac P., Kanniah K., Leuning R., Liddell M. J., Macfarlane C., Meyer W., Moore C., Pendall E., Phillips A., Phillips R. L., Prober S. M., Restrepo-Coupe N., Rutledge S., Schroder I., Silberstein R., Southall P., Yee M. S., Tapper N. J., van Gorsel E., Vote C., Walker J. and Wardlaw T. (2016). An introduction to the Australian and New Zealand flux tower network - OzFlux, Biogeosciences, 13: 5895-5916
- Title
- Cleverly J., Boulain N., Villalobos-Vega R., Grant N., Faux R., Wood C., Cook P. G., Yu Q., Leigh A. and Eamus D. (2013). Dynamics of component carbon fluxes in a semi-arid Acacia woodland, central Australia. J. Geophys. Res.-Biogeosci., 118: 1168-1185
- Website
-
Cleverly J., Boulain N., Villalobos-Vega R., Grant N., Faux R., Wood C., Cook P. G., Yu Q., Leigh A. and Eamus D. (2013). Dynamics of component carbon fluxes in a semi-arid Acacia woodland, central Australia. J. Geophys. Res.-Biogeosci., 118: 1168-1185
Related documentation
- Title
- Eamus D., Cleverly J., Boulain N., Grant N., Faux R. and Villalobos-Vega R. (2013). Carbon and water fluxes in an arid-zone Acacia savanna woodland: An analyses of seasonal patterns and responses to rainfall events. Agric. For. Meteor., 182-183: 225-238
- Website
-
Eamus D., Cleverly J., Boulain N., Grant N., Faux R. and Villalobos-Vega R. (2013). Carbon and water fluxes in an arid-zone Acacia savanna woodland: An analyses of seasonal patterns and responses to rainfall events. Agric. For. Meteor., 182-183: 225-238
Related documentation
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Biannually
- GCMD Science Keywords
-
- BIOGEOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
- LAND PRODUCTIVITY
- EVAPOTRANSPIRATION
- TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS
- ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE MEASUREMENTS
- TURBULENCE
- WIND SPEED
- WIND DIRECTION
- TRACE GASES/TRACE SPECIES
- ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE
- PHOTOSYNTHETICALLY ACTIVE RADIATION
- LONGWAVE RADIATION
- SHORTWAVE RADIATION
- INCOMING SOLAR RADIATION
- HEAT FLUX
- AIR TEMPERATURE
- PRECIPITATION AMOUNT
- HUMIDITY
- SOIL MOISTURE/WATER CONTENT
- SOIL TEMPERATURE
- ANZSRC Fields of Research
- TERN Platform Vocabulary
- TERN Instrument Vocabulary
- TERN Parameter Vocabulary
-
- downward heat flux at ground level in soil
- Watt per Square Metre
- relative humidity
- Percent
- surface downwelling shortwave flux in air
- Watt per Square Metre
- surface net downward radiative flux
- Watt per Square Metre
- surface upward latent heat flux
- Watt per Square Metre
- vertical wind
- Metre per Second
- net ecosystem productivity
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- wind speed
- Metre per Second
- volume fraction of condensed water in soil
- Cubic Metre per Cubic Metre
- thickness of rainfall amount
- Millimetre
- surface upward sensible heat flux
- Watt per Square Metre
- ecosystem respiration
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- gross primary productivity
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- surface friction velocity
- Metre per Second
- mass concentration of water vapor in air
- Gram per Cubic Metre
- surface upwelling shortwave flux in air
- Watt per Square Metre
- mole fraction of water vapor in air
- Millimole per Mole
- soil temperature
- Degree Celsius
- water vapor partial pressure in air
- Kilopascal
- air temperature
- Degree Celsius
- surface upward flux of available energy
- Watt per Square Metre
- water vapor saturation deficit in air
- Kilopascal
- surface air pressure
- Kilopascal
- magnitude of surface downward stress
- Kilograms per metre per square second
- Monin-Obukhov length
- Metre
- surface upwelling longwave flux in air
- Watt per Square Metre
- specific humidity saturation deficit in air
- Kilogram per Kilogram
- surface upward mole flux of carbon dioxide
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- wind from direction
- Degree
- net ecosystem exchange
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- surface downwelling longwave flux in air
- Watt per Square Metre
- specific humidity
- Kilogram per Kilogram
- mole fraction of carbon dioxide in air
- Micromole per Mole
- lateral component of wind speed
- Metre per Second
- water evapotranspiration flux
- Kilograms per square metre per second
- longitudinal component of wind speed
- Square Metre per Square Second
- QUDT Units of Measure
-
- Watt per Square Metre
- Percent
- Watt per Square Metre
- Watt per Square Metre
- Watt per Square Metre
- Metre per Second
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- Metre per Second
- Cubic Metre per Cubic Metre
- Millimetre
- Watt per Square Metre
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- Metre per Second
- Gram per Cubic Metre
- Watt per Square Metre
- Millimole per Mole
- Degree Celsius
- Kilopascal
- Degree Celsius
- Watt per Square Metre
- Kilopascal
- Kilopascal
- Kilograms per metre per square second
- Metre
- Watt per Square Metre
- Kilogram per Kilogram
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- Degree
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- Watt per Square Metre
- Kilogram per Kilogram
- Micromole per Mole
- Metre per Second
- Kilograms per square metre per second
- Square Metre per Square Second
- GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
- GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
- Keywords (Discipline)
-
- AU-ASM
- Mulga woodlands
Resource constraints
- Use limitation
- The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works provided that they credit the original source and any other nominated parties. Details are provided at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- File name
- 88x31.png
- File description
- CCBy Logo from creativecommons.org
- File type
- png
- Title
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
- CC-BY
- Edition
- 4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- TERN services are provided on an “as-is” and “as available” basis. Users use any TERN services at their discretion and risk. They will be solely responsible for any damage or loss whatsoever that results from such use including use of any data obtained through TERN and any analysis performed using the TERN infrastructure. <br /><br />Web links to and from external, third party websites should not be construed as implying any relationships with and/or endorsement of the external site or its content by TERN.<br /><br />Please advise any work or publications that use this data via the online form at https://www.tern.org.au/research-publications/#reporting
- Other constraints
- Please cite this dataset as {Author} ({PublicationYear}). {Title}. {Version, as appropriate}. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. {Identifier}.
Resource constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Environment description
- <br>File naming convention</br> <br>The NetCDF files follow the naming convention below:</br> <br>SiteName_ProcessingLevel_FromDate_ToDate_Type.nc<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>SiteName: short name of the site</li> <li>ProcessingLevel: file processing level (L3, L4, L5, L6) </li> <li>FromDate: temporal interval (start), YYYYMMDD</li> <li>ToDate: temporal interval (end), YYYYMMDD</li> <li>Type (Level 6 only): Summary, Monthly, Daily, Cumulative, Annual</li></ul> For the NetCDF files at Level 6 (L6), there are several additional 'aggregated' files. For example: <ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>Summary: This file is a summary of the L6 data for daily, monthly, annual and cumulative data. The files Monthly to Annual below are combined together in one file.</li> <li>Monthly: This file shows L6 monthly averages of the respective variables, e.g. AH, Fc, NEE, <em>etc.</em></li> <li>Daily: same as Monthly but with daily averages.</li> <li>Cumulative: File showing cumulative values for ecosystem respiration, evapo-transpiration, gross primary productivity, net ecosystem exchange and production as well as precipitation.</li> <li>Annual: same as Monthly but with annual averages.</li></ul>
Distribution Information
- Distribution format
-
Distributor
Distributor
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
80 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland, 4068, Australia
Indooroopilly
Queensland
4068
Australia
- OnLine resource
- NetCDF files (2023_v1)
- OnLine resource
- ro-crate-metadata.json
Data quality info
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Other
- <br>Processing levels</br> <br>Under each of the data release directories, the netcdf files are organised by processing levels (L3, L4, L5 and L6):<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>L3 (Level 3) processing applies a range of quality assurance/quality control measures (QA/QC) to the L1 data. The variable names are mapped to the standard variable names (CF 1.8) as part of this step. The L3 netCDF file is then the starting point for all further processing stages.</li> <li>L4 (Level 4) processing fills gaps in the radiation, meteorological and soil quantities utilising AWS (automated weather station), ACCESS-G (Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator) and ERA5 (the fifth generation ECMWF atmospheric reanalysis of the global climate).</li> <li>L5 (Level 5) processing fills gaps in the flux data employing the artificial neural network SOLO (self-organising linear output map).</li> <li>L6 (Level 6) processing partitions the gap-filled NEE into GPP and ER.</li></ul> Each processing level has two sub-folders ‘default’ and ‘site_pi’:<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>default: contains files processed using PyFluxPro</li> <li>site_pi: contains files processed by the principal investigators of the site.</li></ul> If the data quality is poor, the data is filled from alternative sources. Filled data can be identified by the Quality Controls flags in the dataset. Quality control checks include: <ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>range checks for plausible limits</li> <li>spike detection</li> <li>dependency on other variables</li> <li>manual rejection of date ranges</li></ul> Specific checks applied to the sonic and IRGA data include rejection of points based on the sonic and IRGA diagnostic values and on either automatic gain control (AGC) or CO<sub>2</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O signal strength, depending upon the configuration of the IRGA.</br>
- Title
- Isaac P., Cleverly J., McHugh I., van Gorsel E., Ewenz C. and Beringer, J. (2017). OzFlux data: network integration from collection to curation, Biogeosciences, 14: 2903-2928
- Abstract
- Isaac P., Cleverly J., McHugh I., van Gorsel E., Ewenz C. and Beringer, J. (2017). OzFlux data: network integration from collection to curation, Biogeosciences, 14: 2903-2928
Resource lineage
- Statement
- All flux raw data is subject to the quality control process OzFlux QA/QC to generate data from L1 to L6. Levels 3 to 6 are available for re-use. Datasets contain Quality Controls flags which will indicate when data quality is poor and has been filled from alternative sources. For more details, refer to Isaac et al. (2017).
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Title
- Isaac P., Cleverly J., McHugh I., van Gorsel E., Ewenz C. and Beringer, J. (2017). OzFlux data: network integration from collection to curation, Biogeosciences, 14: 2903-2928
- Website
-
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-2903-2017
Method documentation
- Title
- PyFluxPro
- Website
-
https://github.com/OzFlux/PyFluxPro/wiki
Method documentation
Reference System Information
- Reference system identifier
- EPSG/EPSG:4326
- Reference system type
- Geodetic Geographic 2D
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/fc10d99e-7f15-4864-9ebb-5188a8cbb2f4
- Title
- TERN GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Point of contact
- Title
- Alice Springs Mulga Flux Data Collection
Identifier
- Codespace
- https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/
- Description
- Parent Metadata Record
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Dataset
- Metadata linkage
-
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/fc10d99e-7f15-4864-9ebb-5188a8cbb2f4
Point-of-truth metadata URL
- Date info (Creation)
- 2022-03-17T00:00:00.000000+00:00
- Date info (Revision)
- 2025-12-10T10:35:55.195501+00:00
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO 19115-1:2014/AMD 1:2018 Geographic information - Metadata - Fundamentals
- Edition
- 1
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO/TS 19115-3:2016
- Edition
- 1.0
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO/TS 19157-2:2016
- Edition
- 1.0
- Title
- Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-3:2016 and ISO 19157-2:2016
- Date (published)
- 2021
- Edition
- 1.0
Identifier
Overviews
Spatial extent
N
S
E
W
Provided by
Associated resources
Not available