Gap-filled precipitation data for Saddle, 1981 - ongoing, daily.

As part of its long-term climate data core collection, the Niwot Ridge LTER has collected daily precipitation at the Saddle site since 1981. The Saddle station is located at 3525 m.a.s.l. and is an important point location to capture local, ambient meteorological conditions for many biological and environmental datasets collected nearby. The location of the Saddle station has also presented challenges to its operation. Freezing temperatures, snow deposition from strong winds following storms, and exposure to lightning are some elements that have disrupted instrument functionality, affected data quality, and made access for research staff difficult over time, especially in winter months. Here we present a quality-controlled, gap-filled, daily precipitation time series corrected for blowing snow overcatch at the Saddle station. Methods follow those used to gap-fill long-term daily precipitation at the Niwot Ridge LTER D1 and C1 stations so there is consistency among core collection daily precipitation datasets. Metadata for this data package centralizes the most complete station history for Saddle precipitation and includes notes to data users on aspects and limitations of the dataset to consider when using these data in scientific analyses. Because of unresolved data quality concerns with winter precipitation the first several years of the record, gap-filled data for winter months (October–May) 1981-10-01 through 1987-05-30 are removed.

作为长期气候数据核心馆藏的组成部分，尼沃特岭长期生态研究（Long Term Ecological Research, LTER）自1981年起便在萨德尔站点开展日降水量观测。萨德尔站点海拔3525米（meters above sea level, m.a.s.l.），是捕捉周边诸多生物与环境数据集所需的局地近地面气象条件的关键观测点位。该站点的选址也为其运维带来了诸多挑战：极端低温、风暴后强风裹挟的积雪沉积，以及雷击风险，均长期干扰仪器运行、影响数据质量，且大幅增加了研究人员的通行难度，冬季尤为突出。本研究公开了一套经过质量控制、缺失值插补，并针对吹雪超量捕获效应进行校正的萨德尔站点日降水量时间序列数据集。该数据集的插补方法沿用了尼沃特岭LTER站点D1与C1站的长期日降水量缺失值插补方案，以确保核心馆藏日降水量数据集之间的一致性。本数据包的元数据（Metadata）整合了萨德尔站点降水观测最完整的站点历史记录，并为数据使用者提供了在科学分析中使用该数据集时需留意的相关说明与局限性提示。由于记录最初数年的冬季降水数据存在未解决的质量问题，1981年10月1日至1987年5月30日期间冬季月份（10月至次年5月）的插补数据已被移除。