Water vapor-heat-carbon fluxes and meteorological observation matrix dataset in 2012 over Zhangye oasis-desert area

Abstract

The oasis-desert ecosystem is a unique landscape in arid/semi-arid regions, and the observation and research of its water vapor, heat, and carbon fluxes are of great significance to the stability and sustainable development of oases. This study focuses on the oasis-desert area of Zhangye City, Gansu Province, in the middle reaches of the Heihe River Basin. Based on the state-of-art flux observation matrix experiment conducted in the region in 2012, we processed the water vapor-heat-carbon fluxes and meteorological data from the experiment in two nested matrices (30 km × 30 km and 5.5 km × 5.5 km). There are a total of 22 eddy covariance systems and 21 automatic weather stations within the 21 observation sites as well as 4 group large aperture scintillometer and 3 group thermal dissipation probe observations in the two nested matrices. The observation parameters encompass a wide range of elements, including ecosystem net carbon exchange, latent heat flux, sensible heat flux, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, downward/upward short wave radiation, downward/upward long wave radiation, net radiation, atmospheric pressure, precipitation, infrared radiation temperature, photosynthetic effective radiation, soil temperature, soil moisture, soil heat flux and average soil temperature, tree transpiration, etc. This meticulously processed dataset can be used to study the characteristics and impact mechanisms of water vapor, heat, and carbon changes in oasis-desert areas. Moreover, it can provide a strong data foundation for model simulation or remote sensing estimation results.