• Energy Research

Despite the importance of surface energy budgets (SEBs) for land-climate interactions in the Arctic, uncertainties in their prediction persist. In situ observational data of SEB components - useful for research and model validation - are collected at relatively few sites across the terrestrial Arctic, and not all available datasets are readily interoperable. Furthermore, the terrestrial Arctic consists of a diversity of vegetation types, which are generally not well represented in land surface schemes of current Earth system models.This dataset describes the data generated in a literature synthesis, covering 358 study sites on vegetation or glacier (>=60°N latitude), which contained surface energy budget observations. The literature synthesis comprised 148 publications searched on the ISI Web of Science Core Collection.

List of Ameriflux, AON and FLUXNET sites contained in this dataset and their corresponding siteid's and doi's: CA-SCB (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1498754), FI-Lom (https://doi.org/10.18140/FLX/1440228), GL-NuF (https://doi.org/10.18140/FLX/1440222), GL-ZaF (https://doi.org/10.18140/FLX/1440223), GL-ZaH (https://doi.org/10.18140/FLX/1440224), RU-Che (https://doi.org/10.18140/FLX/1440181), RU-Cok (https://doi.org/10.18140/FLX/1440182), RU-Sam (https://doi.org/10.18140/FLX/1440185), RU-Tks (https://doi.org/10.18140/FLX/1440244), RU-Vrk (https://doi.org/10.18140/FLX/1440245), SE-St1 (https://doi.org/10.18140/FLX/1440187), SJ-Adv (https://doi.org/10.18140/FLX/1440241), SJ-Blv (https://doi.org/10.18140/FLX/1440242), US-A03 (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1498752), US-A10 (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1498753), US-An1 (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1246142), US-An2 (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1246143), US-An3 (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1246144), US-Atq (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1246029), US-Brw (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1246041), US-EML (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1418678), US-HVa (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1246064), US-ICh (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1246133), US-ICs (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1246130), US-ICt (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1246131), US-Ivo (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1246067), US-NGB (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1436326), US-Upa (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1246108), US-xHE (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1617729), US-xTL (https://doi.org/10.17190/AMF/1617739). Despite the importance of surface energy budgets (SEBs) for land-climate interactions in the Arctic, uncertainties in their prediction persist. In situ observational data of SEB components - useful for research and model validation - are collected at relatively few sites across the terrestrial Arctic, and not all available datasets are readily interoperable. Furthermore, the terrestrial Arctic consists of a diversity of vegetation types, which are generally not well represented in land surface schemes of current Earth system models.This dataset comprises harmonized, standardized and aggregated in-situ observations of surface energy budget components measured at 64 sites on vegetated and glaciated sites north of 60° latitude, in the time period from 1994 till 2021. The surface energy budget components include net radiation, sensible heat flux, latent heat flux, ground heat flux, net shortwave radiation, net longwave radiation, surface temperature and albedo, which were aggregated to daily mean, minimum and maximum values from hourly and half-hourly measurements. Data were retrieved from the monitoring networks FLUXNET, AmeriFlux, AON, GC-Net and PROMICE.

AbstractDespite the importance of high-latitude surface energy budgets (SEBs) for land-climate interactions in the rapidly changing Arctic, uncertainties in their prediction persist. Here, we harmonize SEB observations across a network of vegetated and glaciated sites at circumpolar scale (1994–2021). Our variance-partitioning analysis identifies vegetation type as an important predictor for SEB-components during Arctic summer (June-August), compared to other SEB-drivers including climate, latitude and permafrost characteristics. Differences among vegetation types can be of similar magnitude as between vegetation and glacier surfaces and are especially high for summer sensible and latent heat fluxes. The timing of SEB-flux summer-regimes (when daily mean values exceed 0 Wm−2) relative to snow-free and -onset dates varies substantially depending on vegetation type, implying vegetation controls on snow-cover and SEB-flux seasonality. Our results indicate complex shifts in surface energy fluxes with land-cover transitions and a lengthening summer season, and highlight the potential for improving future Earth system models via a refined representation of Arctic vegetation types.