PLUMBER2: forcing and evaluation datasets for a model intercomparison project for land surface models.

PLUMBER2 is a model intercomparison project for land surface models. Multiple leading land surface and ecosystem models are evaluated for water and carbon fluxes at 170 flux tower sites, spanning multiple biomes and climate zones globally. The project is conducted within the Protocol for the Analysis of Land Surface Models (PALS) benchmarking system. This dataset provides the forcing and evaluation datasets underpinning PLUMBER2.  
The dataset is a collection of 170 flux tower sites globally for use in land surface modelling. It provides meteorological variables to force models and flux variables for evaluation. The original data were derived from the FLUXNET2015, La Thuile and OzFlux collections.
The meteorological data have been gap-filled and quality controlled to be directly suitable in land surface modelling. The flux variables provide water, carbon and energy fluxes, including energy balance closure corrected latent and sensible heat fluxes. Addionally site metadata and leaf area index estimates from MODIS and Copernicus Global Land Service producst are provided.
The final output is ALMA-formatted NetCDF files spanning the period 1992-2018, with individual site records ranging from 1 to 21 years.