Current models and satellites struggle to accurately represent the land–atmosphere (L–A) interactions over the Tibetan Plateau. We present the most extensive compilation of in situ observations to date, comprising 17 years of data on L–A interactions across 12 sites. This quality-assured benchmark dataset provides independent validation to improve models and remote sensing for the region, and it enables new investigations of fine-scale L–A processes and their mechanistic drivers.

Unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide a versatile platform for eddy covariance (EC) flux measurements at regional scales with low cost, transport, and infrastructural requirements. This study evaluates the measurement performance in the wind field and turbulent flux of a UAV-based EC system based on the data from a set of calibration flights and standard operational flights and concludes that the system can measure the georeferenced wind vector and turbulent flux with sufficient precision.

We present a suite of observational datasets from artificial and natural oases–desert systems that consist of long-term turbulent flux and auxiliary data, including hydrometeorological, vegetation, and soil parameters, from 2012 to 2021. We confirm that the 10-year, long-term dataset presented in this study is of high quality with few missing data, and we believe that the data will support ecological security and sustainable development in oasis–desert areas.

Based on various existing datasets, we comprehensively considered spatiotemporal differences in land surfaces and CO₂ effects on plant stomatal resistance to parameterize the Shuttleworth–Wallace model, and we generated a global 5 km ensemble mean monthly potential evapotranspiration (PET) dataset (including potential transpiration PT and soil evaporation PE) during 1982–2015. The new dataset may be used by academic communities and various agencies to conduct various studies.

We established a new inventory of surging glaciers across High Mountain Asia based on glacier elevation changes and morphological changes during 1970s–2020. A total of 890 surging and 336 probably or possibly surging glaciers were identified. Compared to the most recent inventory, this one incorporates 253 previously unidentified surging glaciers. Our results demonstrate a more widespread surge behavior in HMA and find that surging glaciers are prone to have steeper slopes than non-surging ones.

This study highlights the role of integrating vegetation and multi-source soil moisture observations in regional climate models via a hybrid data assimilation and machine learning method. In particular, we show that this approach can improve land surface fluxes, near-surface atmospheric conditions, and land–atmosphere interactions by implementing detailed land characterization information in basins with complex underlying surfaces.

The geographically and temporally weighted neural network (GTWNN) model is constructed for estimating large-scale daily snow density by integrating satellite, ground, and reanalysis data, which addresses the importance of spatiotemporal heterogeneity and a nonlinear relationship between snow density and impact variables, as well as allows us to understand the spatiotemporal pattern and heterogeneity of snow density in different snow periods and snow cover regions in China from 2013 to 2020.

Snow phenology is a seasonal pattern in snow cover and snowfall. In this review, we found that during the past 50 years in the Northern Hemisphere, the snow cover end date has shown a significantly advanced change trend. Eurasia contributes more to the snow phenology in the Northern Hemisphere than does North America. Snow phenology is related to climate and atmospheric circulation, and the response to vegetation phenology depends on geographical regions, temperature and precipitation gradients.

Accurate estimation for global GPP and ET is important in climate change studies. In this study, the GLASS LAI, SMOS, and SMAP datasets were assimilated jointly and separately in a coupled model. The results show that the performance of joint assimilation for GPP and ET is better than that of separate assimilation. The joint assimilation in water-limited regions performed better than in humid regions, and the global assimilation results had higher accuracy than other products.

Plants draw CO₂ from the atmosphere during the growing season, while respiration releases CO₂ to the atmosphere throughout the year, driving seasonal variations in atmospheric CO₂ that can be observed by satellites, such as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2). Using OCO-2 X_CO2 data and space-based constraints on plant growth, we show that permafrost-rich northeast Eurasia has a strong seasonal release of CO₂ during the autumn, hinting at an unexpectedly large respiration signal from soils.

Parameter optimization can improve the accuracy of modeled carbon fluxes. Few studies conducted pixel-level parameterization because it requires a high computational cost. Our paper used high-quality spatial products to optimize parameters at the pixel level, and also used the machine learning method to improve the speed of optimization. The results showed that there was significant spatial variability of parameters and we also improved the spatial pattern of carbon fluxes.

An Integrated Microwave Radiometry Campaign for Snow (IMCS) was conducted to collect ground-based passive microwave and optical remote-sensing data, snow pit and underlying soil data, and meteorological parameters. The dataset is unique in continuously providing electromagnetic and physical features of snowpack and environment. The dataset is expected to serve the evaluation and development of microwave radiative transfer models and snow process models, along with land surface process models.

The dataset provided the vegetation photosynthetic phenology instead of traditional phenology to represent plant seasonal activities. This dataset had the latest period (2001–2020) and a fine spatial resolution (0.05 degree). Our phenology metrics revealed the spatial-temporal patterns of the multiple growing seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. The dataset will facilitate various research such as developing models, evaluating phenology shifts, and monitoring climate change worldwide.

We propose a data fusion framework based on the random forest regression algorithm to derive a comprehensive snow depth product for the Northern Hemisphere from 1980 to 2019. This new fused snow depth dataset not only provides information about snow depth and its variation over the Northern Hemisphere but also presents potential value for hydrological and water cycle studies related to seasonal snowpacks.

The temporal series and spatial distribution discontinuity of the existing snow water equivalent (SWE) products in the pan-Arctic region severely restricts the use of SWE data in cryosphere change and climate change studies. Using a ridge regression machine learning algorithm, this study developed a set of spatiotemporally seamless and high-precision SWE products. This product could contribute to the study of cryosphere change and climate change at large spatial scales.

Long-term snow cover data are not only of importance for climate research. Currently China still lacks a high-quality snow cover extent (SCE) product for climate research. This study develops a multi-level decision tree algorithm for cloud and snow discrimination and gap-filled technique based on AVHRR surface reflectance data. We generate a daily 5 km SCE product across China from 1981 to 2019. It has high accuracy and will serve as baseline data for climate and other applications.

We improve the commonly used GPS-IR algorithm for estimating surface soil moisture in permafrost areas, which does not consider the bias introduced by seasonal surface vertical movement. We propose a three-in-one framework to integrate the GPS-IR observations of surface elevation changes, soil moisture, and snow depth at one site and illustrate it by using a GPS site in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. This study is the first to use GPS-IR to measure environmental variables in the Tibetan Plateau.