the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
High-resolution Carbon cycling data from 2019 to 2021 measured at six Austrian LTER sites
Abstract. Seven long-term observation sites have been established in six regions across Austria, covering major ecosystem types such as forests, grasslands and wetlands across a wide bioclimatic range. The purpose of these observations is to measure key ecosystem parameters serving as baselines for assessing the impacts of extreme climate events on the carbon cycle. The data sets collected include meteorological variables, soil microclimate, CO2 fluxes and tree stem growth, all recorded at high temporal resolution between 2019 and 2021 (including one year of average climate conditions and two comparatively dry years). The DOIs of the dataset can be found in the data availability chapter. The sites will be integrated into the European Research Infrastructure for Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, Critical Zone, and Socio-Ecological Research (eLTER RI). Subsequently, new data covering the variables presented here will be continuously available through its data integration portal. This step will allow the data to reach its full potential for research on drought-related ecosystem carbon cycling.
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Status: open (until 20 Aug 2024)
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RC1: 'Comment on essd-2024-110', Anonymous Referee #1, 02 Jul 2024
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Peer review report on “High-resolution Carbon cycling data from 2019 to 2021 measured at six Austrian LTER sites”
- Original Submission
Recommendation:
Major Revision
- Comments to Author:
Ms. Ref. No.: essd-2024-110
Title: High-resolution Carbon cycling data from 2019 to 2021 measured at six Austrian LTER sites
Overview and general recommendation:
Extreme events are projected to happen more frequently in the future under the ongoing climate change. Understanding how ecosystem carbon fluxes and their components (e.g. soil respiration) respond to these extreme events, and identifying the critical regulators of these responses, is crucial. High-quality datasets are essential to address these questions. Despite a slightly short coverage of years, the carbon fluxes and relevant environmental factors at six Austrian sites, covering forests, grasslands, and wetlands, provided by Dirnböck et al., are valuable for quantifying the effects of extreme events on carbon dynamics. Overall, the manuscript clearly describes the site information, instrument setup, available data at each site, and relevant data processing procedures. I believe it can be a valuable dataset, but some issues need to be addressed before the manuscript is suitable for publication.
Major Comments:
- As one of the most important carbon cycling data, the ecosystem-level eddy covariance data have not been displayed in this manuscript. We suggested authors to display the EC data at least for one site in each vegetation type.
- It is interesting and useful to have the continuous soil respiration observations in some of sites. However, there are lots of missing data especially in critical period in the growing season. I am wondering if this dataset can really achieve the goal to understand the effects of extreme events on carbon dynamics.
- A lot of abbreviations in the manuscript have not been clearly defined. To reach wider audiences and fully exploit the data, better definition of terms is needed.
Additionally, even though the manuscript is generally clearly described, text can be polished to make the description more concise and well linked.
Minor Comments:
- Line 24: What “the high resolution” is? Half-hourly or daily? Could you specify them?
- Line 55: “C” has not been defined before.
- Line 52: From the abbreviation of “LTER-CWN”, the description before should be “carbon, water, and nitrogen”?
- Line 66-69: The names are not exactly consistent with the descriptions in Figure 1. Where is Kaserstattalm? In the site descriptions, authors also mentioned lowlands et al., it could be easier to understand if the authors could also add elevation in the map.
- Line 74: What is the “DEIMS-SDR” stands for, can you spell its full name?
- Line 76: Please specify the full name of “BOKU”, this also applies for “FAO” and “WRB” in Line 83.
- Line 91: What is the meaning of “DRAIN” and where its location in the map?
- Line 94: What the selected soil biogeochemical and microbiological processes?
- Line 104: Please specify the full name of “ICP” and explain what is the Level 2 site.
- Line 176: What “UNECE” stands for?
- Line 198: The vertical line of “Zöbelboden” is not visible.
- Line 199: Please properly define the LTSER.
- Line 201-202: For Metadata Table 1, maybe the authors can add the information such as elevation, annual temperature and precipitation, dominant species, main equipped measurements, “data shared status” et al., to make the table more comprehensive so that the audience can have a general overview of the introduced Austrian LTER sites.
- Line 264-265: To confirm, the “Eddy covariance devices” were calibrated once a year or monthly?
- Line 274: What is the time resolution for the measurements of stem growth?
- Line 294-295: “At KAS, the maximum temperatures in the year 2021 were lower (0.6 °C)”—compared to when?
- Line 297: It seems that Figure 3 is not about the soil temperature.
- Line 299: In Figure 2, you may add the long-term monthly mean temperature and precipitation to better illustrate the 2019 and 2021 are drier years while 2020 is roughly close to average climate?
- Line 314: Rs should be defined.
- Line 335-337: How do you conclude this, do you have some analysis to demonstrate this statement?
- Line 345: It seems that there are quite large variations in stem growth between 2019 and 2021, how was the stem growth in normal year 2020?
- Line 387: ICOS should be defined as “Integrated Carbon Observation System”.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-110-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Thomas Dirnböck, 12 Jul 2024
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Response to Reviewer #1
Overview and general recommendation:
Extreme events are projected to happen more frequently in the future under the ongoing climate change. Understanding how ecosystem carbon fluxes and their components (e.g. soil respiration) respond to these extreme events, and identifying the critical regulators of these responses, is crucial. High-quality datasets are essential to address these questions. Despite a slightly short coverage of years, the carbon fluxes and relevant environmental factors at six Austrian sites, covering forests, grasslands, and wetlands, provided by Dirnböck et al., are valuable for quantifying the effects of extreme events on carbon dynamics. Overall, the manuscript clearly describes the site information, instrument setup, available data at each site, and relevant data processing procedures. I believe it can be a valuable dataset, but some issues need to be addressed before the manuscript is suitable for publication.
Author response: we are grateful for the positive evaluation and provide a point-by-point response to the major and minor comments below
Major Comments:
- As one of the most important carbon cycling data, the ecosystem-level eddy covariance data have not been displayed in this manuscript. We suggested authors to display the EC data at least for one site in each vegetation type.
Author response: thank you for the suggestion. We will add this Fig. to the manuscript. Kindly note that our dataset includes EC data from two wetland sites (see table 3 of the manuscript); please see the figure for the site PUE as an example.
- It is interesting and useful to have the continuous soil respiration observations in some of sites. However, there are lots of missing data especially in critical period in the growing season. I am wondering if this dataset can really achieve the goal to understand the effects of extreme events on carbon dynamics.
Author response: we agree that even three years of this kind of data can only to some extent be used to explore effects of climate extreme events. Therefore, we pointed out that “We provide baseline ecosystem data related to the carbon cycle and capture naturally occurring ECEs across various ecosystem types typical for Austria and other regions of Central Europe.” (Discussion L 350). As a baseline, the data covers a first set of three years, which will be prolonged in the Ecosystem Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI) and is supplemented with historical data published in previous manuscripts and data repositories (see Discussion in L379-L384).It is clear and unfortunate that the dataset has some data gaps (usually due to the malfunctioning of devices and complications during the installation and adjustment phases). In order to strengthen these limitations, we added “While the three-year data with the usual measurement gaps can only to some extent capture aspects of drought related effects it represents a valuable baseline.” (L373-L375).
- A lot of abbreviations in the manuscript have not been clearly defined. To reach wider audiences and fully exploit the data, better definition of terms is needed.
Author response: we thank the reviewer for spotting this issue. We will add all the details for the abbreviations (see detailed response below)
Additionally, even though the manuscript is generally clearly described, text can be polished to make the description more concise and well linked.
Author response: we will rework the entire text.
Minor Comments:
- Line 24: What “the high resolution” is? Half-hourly or daily? Could you specify them?
Author response: Here, we will specify the range “(15 – 60 minutes)”, and will add the specific resolution to each measurement component
- Line 55: “C” has not been defined before.
Author response: Right indeed, we will write C (carbon) in L34
- Line 52: From the abbreviation of “LTER-CWN”, the description before should be “carbon, water, and nitrogen”?
Author response: Thanks for pointing to this. We will add the long title.
- Line 66-69: The names are not exactly consistent with the descriptions in Figure 1. Where is Kaserstattalm? In the site descriptions, authors also mentioned lowlands et al., it could be easier to understand if the authors could also add elevation in the map.
Author response: Thanks again. We will change the name to “Stubai”, which is the site name and Kasterstattalm is a Subsite
- Line 74: What is the “DEIMS-SDR” stands for, can you spell its full name?
Author response: Thanks, we again will spell out the abbreviation.
- Line 76: Please specify the full name of “BOKU”, this also applies for “FAO” and “WRB” in Line 83.
Author response: Since 2024 it is recommended to refer to BOKU as “BOKU University” in English; the alternative would be to use the official name Universität für Bodenkultur, which can be confusing for an international audience. We will added the correct reference for FAO/WRB at all placed it was cited.
- Line 91: What is the meaning of “DRAIN” and where its location in the map?
Author response: Instead of adding the full name, we will skipp the abbreviation, as it is not considered crucial.
- Line 94: What the selected soil biogeochemical and microbiological processes?
Author response: We suggest to keep this general description, since it is not considered important for the data we present here.
- Line 104: Please specify the full name of “ICP” and explain what is the Level 2 site.
Author response: Again, we will spell out the abbreviation for ICP Forests, but will skipp “Level 2” because it is not important in the context of the manuscript.
- Line 176: What “UNECE” stands for?
Author response: We will change the abbreviation to “International Cooperative Programme on Integrated Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Ecosystems (ICP IM)”.
- Line 198: The vertical line of “Zöbelboden” is not visible.
Author response: Thanks for pointing this out. We will change the figure accordingly.
- Line 199: Please properly define the LTSER.
Author response: We will do so by writing “Long-term socio-ecological research platforms (LTSER)”.
- Line 201-202: For Metadata Table 1, maybe the authors can add the information such as elevation, annual temperature and precipitation, dominant species, main equipped measurements, “data shared status” et al., to make the table more comprehensive so that the audience can have a general overview of the introduced Austrian LTER sites.
Author response: We will add the requested metadata after clarifying with the editor how comprehensive the overall table can be. In any case, we consider the DEIMS-SDR link - being rather long - crucial because this is where the site metadata is located.
- Line 264-265: To confirm, the “Eddy covariance devices” were calibrated once a year or monthly?
Author response: In order to clarify this, we will write: “calibrated once a year in the lab, and monthly in the field.”
- Line 274: What is the time resolution for the measurements of stem growth?
Author response: We added the time resolutions of all measurement components.
- Line 294-295: “At KAS, the maximum temperatures in the year 2021 were lower (0.6 °C)”—compared to when?
Author response: Thanks for the question; this part was indeed misleading. We now write: “The mean annual temperature maxima (90 percentile) were between 0.3 °C (KAS) and 2.3 °C (ZOE) higher in the year 2019 than in 2020. These differences were lower when comparing in the year 2021 with 2019 (≤< 0.5 6 °C).”
- Line 297: It seems that Figure 3 is not about the soil temperature.
Author response: We apologize; the correct figure is Figure 4.
- Line 299: In Figure 2, you may add the long-term monthly mean temperature and precipitation to better illustrate the 2019 and 2021 are drier years while 2020 is roughly close to average climate?
Author response: Indeed, we used the year 2020 as a reference for an average climate (see L297-L298). After discussing ways to show the long-term averages we suggest to use gridded long-term data from the Austrian meteorological service (https://data.hub.geosphere.at/dataset/winfore-v2-1d-1km). With this data, we are able to show - consistently for all sites - deviations of a drought index (SPEI - Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index) for 2019, 2020, and 2021 from a 30-year average (1980-2010). Using this new analysis, we will add to the chapter and adapt in the following way: “We used gridded SPEI (Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index) from the Austrian Meteorological Service (https://data.hub.geosphere.at/dataset/winfore-v2-1d-1km; Haslinger & Bartsch (2016)) to compare the long-term average water availability during the growing season (1980-2010; May to September) with those occurring in the measurement years (Table 3). The advantage of the SPEI is that it accounts for precipitation and temperature via evapotranspiration and integrates over a given temporal window (we used 30 days) (Vicente-Serrano et al. 2010) Accordingly, the 2021 was closest to the long-term average, the year 2020 was a particularly wet year, and the year 2019 was drier than the average. However, there were differences between the sites: Particularly the mountain station in the Tyrolian Alps (KAS) did not experience significant deviations in SPEI as compared to the long-term average apart from a wet growing season in 2021. The SPEI at the site in the Viennese Forest (KLL) does not indicate that in 2019, the growth period was particularly dry. The monthly precipitation and temperature patterns are shown in Figure 2, and soil water content and soil temperatures in Figure 3 and Figure 5. Differences in the seasonal precipitation patterns between the measurement years vary a lot between sites. In sum, lower precipitation occurred in 2019 and 2021 than in 2020 in all sites. The mean annual temperature maxima (90 percentile) were between 0.3 °C (KAS) and 2.3 °C (ZOE) higher in the year 2019 than in 2020. These differences were lower when comparing the year 2021 with 2019 (≤ 0.6 °C). In accordance with SPEI, precipitation and temperature, soil water content showed the lowest values during the years 2019 followed by the year 2021, and soil temperature were higher during these years (Figure 4).” (please see the SPEI results in the attachment; the table will be included in the manuscript)
- Line 314: Rs should be defined
Author response: We will do so: “Soil respiration (Rs)”.
- Line 335-337: How do you conclude this, do you have some analysis to demonstrate this statement?
Author response: Thank you for your question. We agree that it is not possible to draw such a conclusion from the way we present the data in this paper. While we don’t think that such a specific analysis would be needed for a data paper, we could provide if the editor considers this to be helpful or needed. Our suggestion is to included some references, which back up the statement for the sites.
- Line 345: It seems that there are quite large variations in stem growth between 2019 and 2021, how was the stem growth in normal year 2020?
Author response: We suggest adding the data from the year 2020 in a then three-panel figure. In 2020, higher soil moisture particularly during spring and early summer (the main growth period) leads to a continuously increasing stem diameter without the pumps occurring during dry periods in 2019 and 2021 (we add this figure as an attachment).
- Line 387: ICOS should be defined as “Integrated Carbon Observation System”.
Author response: We will changed the text accordingly.
Data sets
Zöbelboden (Austria) - soil CO2 respiration for the years 2019-2021 J. Kobler et al. https://doi.org/10.23728/b2share.4f44006b932142e68981106a016f1f56
Interactive computing environment
Jupyter Notebook to access, merge, and visualize the data from all sites I. Offenthaler https://gist.github.com/1O/9bbe44a03f12801c6c742202b005db57
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