Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research Program Datasets

The Long Term Ecological Research Program (LTER)
was established by the National Science Foundation
to conduct research on long-term ecological
phenomena in an array of ecosystems within the
United States. Niwot Ridge is the sole alpine
tundra site and is located approximately 35 km
west of Boulder, CO. NWT LTER research is also
facilitated by affiliations with several other
associated institutions. The data sets at Niwot
Ridge include Routine monitoring/measurements
include (but are not limited to):
Meteorological/Climatological: air temperature,
precipitation, relative humidity, wind speed and
direction, solar radiation Hydrological: stream
discharge, snowpack ablation, snow water
equivalent, soil moisture Biogeochemical:
atmospheric deposition [~125K photo and caption],
snowpack chemistry, surface water quality; Other
Research: The bulk of the past and current
research conducted on Niwot Ridge is of a less
routine (but of a no less significant) nature and
includes: Meteorological/Climatological: lake-ice
clearance and freeze-up, soil temperatures [~76K
photo and caption] Biogeochemical - atmospheric
N loading, soil physical and chemical properties,
wood, litter, and root decomposition, soil and
microbial N transformations, microbial
respiration, methane and nitrous oxide fluxes
[~69K photo and caption], plant biomass N &
storage Biological - aboveground phytomass [~78K
photo and caption], plant phenology, plant species
composition, small mammal herbivore surveys, soil
microarthropod densities, fossil insect
assemblages, in addition, recent years have seen
more research activity in the areas of
geographical information systems, (GIS), remote
sensing, and modeling. Associated metadata and
data for the majority of these research projects
are available in Niwot Ridge LTER Data.