The 0.1° stem area index dataset over Tibetan Plateau from 1981 to 2018

Based on the method of Zeng et al. (2002), we built the monthly stem area index (Ls) data product over Tibetan Plateau (TP) at 0.1°×0.1° spatial resolution from 1981-08 to 2018-12 by using leaf area index data (LAI) from GLASS (Liang et al., 2021) and grass fractional cover data from Lawrence and Chase (2007). We adjusted the monthly remaining rate of dead leaves and stem (α) to 0.9 to represent the low dieback of alpine grass (Wood, 1970) and the iterative calculation of Ls starts from August, 1981 when the withered grass stems over TP are minimal.