Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research Program Datasets

Niwot Ridge is the sole alpine tundra site and is located approximately 35 km west of Boulder, CO. NWT LTER research is also facilitated by affiliations with several other associated institutions.

The data sets at Niwot Ridge include Routine monitoring/measurements include (but are not limited to): Meteorological/Climatological: air temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radiation Hydrological: stream discharge, snowpack ablation, snow water equivalent, soil moisture Biogeochemical: atmospheric deposition [~125K photo and caption], snowpack chemistry, surface water quality; Other Research: The bulk of the past and current research conducted on Niwot Ridge is of a less routine (but of a no less significant) nature and includes: Meteorological/Climatological: lake-ice clearance and freeze-up, soil temperatures [~76K photo and caption] Biogeochemical - atmospheric N loading, soil physical and chemical properties, wood, litter, and root decomposition, soil and microbial N transformations, microbial respiration, methane and nitrous oxide fluxes [~69K photo and caption], plant biomass N & storage Biological - aboveground phytomass [~78K photo and caption], plant phenology, plant species composition, small mammal herbivore surveys, soil microarthropod densities, fossil insect assemblages, in addition, recent years have seen more research activity in the areas of geographical information systems, (GIS), remote sensing, and modeling.