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（Rocky Mountain Front Range）正经历夏季升温与提前融雪的现象。由于积雪在调节高山生态系统的土壤温度、生长季长度与有效水分方面发挥关键作用，融雪期的微小变动都可能产生显著影响。本黑沙延长生长季实验（Black Sand Extended Growing Season Length Experiment）旨在探究：在融雪提前的背景下，与地形相关的气候暴露差异如何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影响，西北领地长期生态研究站（NWT LTER）的研究人员设立了5个实验样地，每个样地包含一对10×40米的矩形样方。这些样地涵盖了南北向坡向的区域，以及不同水文条件下的亚高山与高山苔原草甸（例如旱生草甸、中生草甸与湿生草甸）。我们在每个配对样地的其中一个样方中施加化学惰性黑沙以加速融雪，另一个样方则作为未施加任何人工干预的对照组；黑沙的施加操作是在积雪自然融化后开展的。本数据集包含2022至2023年的物候相机（phenocam）影像数据。