Limnological data from nearly 400 lakes across the Americas and New Zealand with a focus on vertical profiles of temperature, UV radiation, and optical properties

Two and a half decades of limnological data have been collected from nearly 400 lakes, encompassing a wide range of systems and a broad range of geography. This data set comprises one of the largest and most complete sets of measurements of underwater ultraviolet (UV) transparency available in the world. The data include a suite of 36 variables, with a focus on the optical characteristics. Lakes range from pristine natural lakes to manmade reservoirs. The systems represented in this data set are largely located in North America, from the northeastern United States to Alaska, and alpine and subalpine lakes in the Rocky Mountains of the United States and Canada. Lakes included range from iconic Lake Tahoe, and Castle Lake in northern California, to lakes in the South American Patagonian region, as well as New Zealand. Data were most often collected during the summer, and in some lakes span multiple years (with year-round data since 2006 in Lake Tahoe). The data here are contained in four files, including LakeData.csv, SiteInformation.csv, Methods.csv, and Variables.csv. The main data are in LakeData.csv. SiteInformation.csv, Methods.csv, and Variables.csv support the main data file with descriptions of the sampling sites, methods by which samples were processed, and descriptions of the variables that were measured, respectively. This data set complements the site-intensive limnological data that we published in EDI on 30+ years of data from 3 lakes in the Poconos Mountains region of Pennsylvania, USA. This complementary data set can be accessed at https://portal.edirepository.org/nis/mapbrowse?scope=edi&identifier=186