RUSWET-GRASS-6STA

PLANT-AVAILABLE SOIL MOISTURE DATA FROM THE

SIX RUSSIAN STATIONS USED IN THE ROBOCK ET AL. (1995) STUDY

Alan Robock
Department of Environmental Sciences,
Rutgers University

Konstantin Vinnikov
Department of Meteorology, University of Maryland

C. Adam Schlosser
Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies

Nina A. Speranskaya
State Hydrological Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia

February 14, 1997

Also available:

Forcing and Validation Data (Meteorological, Actinometric, and Hydrological)
Depth of Frozen Soil Layer

Robock et al. (1995) used 6 stations from the Vinnikov and Yeserkepova (1991) 50-station archive (also in the 130-station archive) to demonstrate that land surface models, when forced with actual meteorological and actinometric data, can be evaluated by comparison with actual soil moisture, snow depth, albedo, and net radiation observations. Those soil moisture data are described here. The forcing and other validation data and a subset of depth of frozen soil layers data are also available. These data have been used by a number of land surface groups to exercise their models, and we encourage further use of these data by others.

The data are contained in the file soilm.6station. The file contains measurements of plant-available soil moisture for the six Russian stations: Yershov, Tulun, Uralsk, Kostroma, Khabarovsk, and Ogurtsovo. The plant-available soil moisture measurements (UNITS ARE CM) are available for four different layers: 0-10 cm, 0-20 cm, 0-50 cm, and 0-100 cm.

The data are given in yearly blocks for each station. Each block of data contains a header which gives the year and the name of the station and can be read with the following format: 
      format (i4,a25)

The next eight lines contain the plant-available soil moisture measurements for the corresponding year and station of the header. A two line pair consists of measurements made through the year of available soil moisture for a particular soil layer. The first two line pair is for the 0-10cm layer, the second pair for the 0-20cm layer, the third pair for 0-50cm layer, and the fourth pair for 0-100cm layer. For a particular two line pair, the format for reading this block is 
      format (18f4.1,/,18f4.1)

The data begin in January and end in December. Measurements of soil moisture are taken on the 8th, the 18th, and the 28th of each month (i.e., 3 times a month for 12 months = 36 total entries... 2 lines of 18 entries).

Overall, the yearly blocks of plant-available soil moisture data are grouped for each station and ordered by year starting from 1978 and ending at 1983.

We recommend that you refer to the Robock et al. (1995) for any general questions regarding the data and to use as a check for proper reading of the data.

REFERENCES

Robock, Alan, Konstantin Ya. Vinnikov, C. Adam Schlosser, Nina A. Speranskaya, and Yongkang Xue, 1995: Use of midlatitude soil moisture and meteorological observations to validate soil moisture simulations with biosphere and bucket models. J. Climate, 8, 15-35. ABSTRACT

Vinnikov, K. Ya. and I. B. Yeserkepova, 1991: Soil moisture: empirical data and model results. J. Climate, 4, 66-79.

For additional information, please contact:

Dr. Konstantin Ya. Vinnikov OR Prof. Alan Robock
Department of Meteorology Department of Environmental Sciences
University of Maryland Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
College Park, Maryland 20742 USA New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901 USA
Phone: (301) 405-5382 Phone: (732) 932-9478
Fax: (301) 314-9482Fax: (732) 932-8644
E-mail: kostya@atmos.umd.edu E-mail: robock@envsci.rutgers.edu

OR

C. Adam Schlosser
Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies
4041 Powder Mill Rd., Suite 302
Calverton, MD 20705
Phone:(301) 595-7000
E-mail: adam@cola.iges.org

TO DOWNLOAD THE DATA, CLICK HERE.

Prepared by Alan Robock (robock@envsci.rutgers.edu) and Govindarajalu Srinivasan (srini@envsci.rutgers.edu)
Last updated on August 6, 2004