A flux tower site attribute dataset intended for land surface modeling

Abstract. Land surface models (LSMs) should have reliable forcing, validation, and surface attribute data as the foundation for effective model development and improvement. Eddy covariance flux tower data are considered the benchmarking data for LSMs. However, currently available flux tower datasets often require multiple aspects of processing to ensure data quality before application to LSMs. More importantly, these datasets lack site-observed attribute data, limiting their use as benchmarking data. Here, we conducted a comprehensive quality screening of the existing reprocessed flux tower dataset, including the proportion of gap-filled data, external disturbances, and energy balance closure (EBC), leading to 90 high-quality sites. For these sites, we collected vegetation, soil, topography information, and wind speed measurement height from literature, regional networks, and Biological, Ancillary, Disturbance, and Metadata (BADM) files. Then we obtained the final flux tower attribute dataset by global data product complement and plant functional types (PFTs) classification. This dataset is provided in NetCDF format complete with necessary descriptions and reference sources. Model simulations revealed substantial disparities in output between the attribute data observed at the site and the defaults of the model, underscoring the critical role of site-observed attribute data and increasing the emphasis on flux tower attribute data in the LSM community. The dataset addresses the lack of site attribute data to some extent, reduces uncertainty in LSMs data source, and aids in diagnosing parameter as well as process deficiencies. The dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10939725 (Shi et al., 2024).