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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ESSDD</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>Earth System Science Data Discussions</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ESSDD</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">1866-3591</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name></publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/essd-2026-683</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>A knowledge-guided daily multi-layer soil freeze-thaw dataset for the Northern Hemisphere during 1950-2025</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yu</surname>
<given-names>Han</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3200-5356</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wu</surname>
<given-names>Mousong</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yin</surname>
<given-names>Dongjie</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Ran</surname>
<given-names>Youhua</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7774-4612</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yi</surname>
<given-names>Yonghong</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>International Institute for Earth System Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>National Cryosphere Desert Data Center, State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science and Frozen Soil Engineering, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>College of Surveying and Geo-informatics, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>24</day>
<month>09</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>44</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Han Yu et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-683/">This article is available from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-683/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-683/essd-2026-683.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-683/essd-2026-683.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Soil freeze-thaw (FT) dynamics regulate key thermal, hydrological, and ecological processes in cold regions, yet long-term, spatially continuous, and vertically resolved daily FT records remain scarce, particularly before the satellite era. Here, we present a soil Freeze-Thaw dataset generated using Knowledge-Guided Machine Learning (FT-KGML), providing daily FT states at 0.1&amp;deg; spatial resolution across Northern Hemisphere frozen-ground regions from 1950 to 2025 at depths of 10, 30, and 50&amp;thinsp;cm. FT-KGML was generated using a knowledge-guided neural network model that learns process-based FT relationships from soil-temperature simulations and is subsequently constrained by in situ observations, enabling a continuous 76-year reconstruction of subsurface FT dynamics. Independent station evaluation yielded overall daily classification accuracies of 86.12&amp;thinsp;%, 89.67&amp;thinsp;%, and 90.39&amp;thinsp;% at 10, 30, and 50&amp;thinsp;cm, respectively. Seasonal FT phenology was also well reproduced, with generally stronger agreement for the onset of soil freezing than for the onset of soil thawing. Matched comparisons with passive-microwave FT products and ERA5-Land showed broadly consistent daily FT dynamics and seasonal transition timing across datasets, providing additional support for the reliability of FT-KGML despite differences in their spatial scales and FT representations. The long-term record reveals relatively weak and spatially heterogeneous FT phenology changes during 1950-1978, followed by widespread earlier spring thaw and later autumn freezing after 1979. During 1979-2025, spring thaw advanced by 2.93-3.12&amp;thinsp;d&amp;thinsp;decade&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt;, whereas autumn freezing was delayed by 2.22-3.24&amp;thinsp;d&amp;thinsp;decade&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt; across the three soil depths. By combining long temporal coverage, daily resolution, and multi-depth representation, FT-KGML provides a new resource for cryospheric, hydrological, ecological, and land-surface modelling communities investigating frozen-ground variability, subsurface seasonality, and long-term environmental change. The dataset is available at &lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22019944&quot;&gt;https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22019944&lt;/a&gt; (Yu and Wu, 2026).</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="44"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Key Research and Development Program of China</funding-source>
<award-id>2024YFF0810900</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>National Natural Science Foundation of China</funding-source>
<award-id>42371486</award-id>
<award-id>42111530184</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs3">
<funding-source>Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities</funding-source>
<award-id>2026300415</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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