These data describe the Australia-wide, monthly fraction of Photosynthetically Active Radiation absorbed by vegetation (fPAR) derived from Advance Very High Resolution Radiometer data spanning July 1981 to Oct 2011. FPAR is linearly related to fractional foliage cover. Here fPAR is split into that of persistent vegetation and of recurrent vegetation, which represent non-deciduous perennial vegetation and annual, ephemeral and deciduous vegetation, respectively. Data have been processed using the "invariant cover triangle" method to remove the majority of errors introduced by sensor calibration and change-over effects.

The far north Queensland microclimate (FNQ-microclim) is an ongoing long-term microclimate monitoring project from across five tropical rainforest sites (Daintree Rainforest SuperSite, Cape Tribulation; Daintree Rainforest SuperSite, Cow Bay; Rex Range; Mt. Lewis National Park; and Mt. Bellenden Ker), located within an elevation range of 40 - 1550 m a.s.l. Microclimate parameters include: a) air temperature (about 15 cm above ground), b) near surface temperature at the interface between soil and air (less than 1 cm above ground), c) top soil temperature (about 8 cm below ground), and d) top soil moisture (up to 10 cm below ground). Data are recorded every 15 minutes using the TMS-4 sensors (Temperature Moisture Sensor, T.M.O.S.T s.r.o, Prague, Czech Republic).