Abstract
Abstract. Permafrost has great influences on the climatic, hydrological, and ecological systems on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP). The changing permafrost and its impact have been attracting great attention worldwide like never before. More observational and modeling approaches are needed to promote an understanding of permafrost thermal state and climatic conditions on the QTP. However, limited data on the permafrost thermal state and climate background have been sporadically reported in different pieces of literature due to the difficulties of accessing and working in this region where the weather is severe, environmental conditions are harsh, and the topographic and morphological features are complex. From the 1990s, we began to establish a permafrost monitoring network on the QTP. Meteorological variables were measured by automatic meteorological systems. The soil temperature and moisture data were collected from an integrated observation system in the active layer. Deep ground temperature (GT) was observed from boreholes. In this study, a comprehensive dataset consisting of long-term meteorological, GT, soil moisture, and soil temperature data was compiled after quality control from an integrated, distributed, and multiscale observation network in the permafrost regions of QTP. The dataset is helpful for scientists with multiple study fields (i.e., climate, cryospheric, ecology and hydrology, meteorology science), which will significantly promote the verification, development, and improvement of hydrological models, land surface process models, and climate models on the QTP. The datasets are available from the National Tibetan Plateau/Third Pole Environment Data Center (https://data.tpdc.ac.cn/en/disallow/789e838e-16ac-4539-bb7e-906217305a1d/, last access: 24 August 2021, https://doi.org/10.11888/Geocry.tpdc.271107, Lin et al., 2021).
Highlights
Permafrost is widely distributed on the Qinghai– Tibet Plateau (QTP), which is called the “Third Pole of the Earth” (Qiu, 2008)
AYK is located in the Altun Mountains area in the northern Tibetan Plateau, a vast uninhabited area on the QTP, and is one of the areas with few observations
The soil water content was measured by a Hydra soil moisture sensor (Table 1) by connecting to a CR10X/CR1000/CR3000 data logger (Campbell Scientific, USA), which can record the total volumetric soil water content as the soil is in a thawing state but can only record the unfrozen water content when the soil is frozen
Summary
Permafrost is widely distributed on the QTP, which is called the “Third Pole of the Earth” (Qiu, 2008). The Cryosphere Research Station, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CRS-CAS), has established a comprehensive and wide permafrost monitoring network on the QTP (Zhao et al, 2019, 2020). This network mainly focuses on monitoring permafrost and its environmental factors in high-elevation and cold-climate regions of the QTP. Since the station was established in 1987, we have conducted long-term continuous monitoring and large-scale field investigations of permafrost It synthetically studies the mechanisms of change in hydrothermal conditions on the permafrost as well as their simulations and ecological effects.
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