Time-lapse camera (phenocam) imagery of black sand extended growing season length experiment, 2022 - 2023.

As a result of climate change, the Rocky Mountain Front Range is experiencing warmer summers and potentially earlier snowmelt. Due to the importance of snow for regulating soil temperature, growing season length, and available moisture in alpine ecosystems, even small shifts in the snow-free period could have large impacts. The focus of the Black Sand Extended Growing Season Length Experiment is to examine how terrain-related differences in climate exposure influence the way alpine habitats respond to climate change via earlier snowmelt. To simulate how climate exposure may affect plant communities, NWT LTER researchers established 5 experimental sites each containing a pair 10 x 40m rectangular plots. These sites include north and south facing aspects, subalpine and alpine tundra meadows in a range of hydrological conditions (e.g. dry meadows, moist meadows, wet meadows). We accelerated snowmelt in one plot of each block by adding chemically inert black sand, while keeping the second plot as an unmanipulated control; black sand was added to these plots after snow had naturally melted. This dataset includes phenocam images from 2022-2023.

受气候变化影响，落基山脉前缘夏季气温升高，融雪时间可能提前。由于积雪对调节高山生态系统（alpine ecosystems）的土壤温度、生长季长度及可用水分至关重要，即使无雪期发生微小变化也可能产生重大影响。黑沙延长生长季长度实验旨在探究气候暴露（climate exposure）的地形差异如何通过提前融雪影响高山生境对气候变化的响应。为模拟气候暴露对植物群落的潜在影响，NWT长期生态研究站（NWT LTER）的研究人员建立了5个实验点，每个点包含一对10×40米的矩形样地。这些实验点涵盖南北坡向、亚高山与高山苔原（tundra）草甸等多种水文条件（如干旱草甸、湿润草甸、潮湿草甸）。研究人员通过在每个区块的其中一个样地添加化学惰性黑沙以加速融雪，另一个样地作为未处理对照；黑沙于自然融雪后施加至样地。本数据集包含2022-2023年的物候相机（phenocam）图像。