In 1995, the BOREAS science teams identified the need for a continuous surface meteorological and radiation data set to support flux and surface process modeling efforts. This data set contains actual, substituted, and interpolated 15-minute meteorological and radiation data compiled from several surface measurements sites over the BOREAS SSA and NSA. Temporally, the data cover 01-Jan-1994 to 31-Dec-1996.

The BOREAS TE-06 team collected several data sets to examine the influence of vegetation, climate, and their interactions on the major carbon fluxes for boreal forest species. This data set contains measurements of the air temperature at a single height and soil temperature at several depths in the NSA from 25-May to 8-Oct-1994. Chromel-Constantan thermocouple wires run by a miniprogrammable data logger (Model 21X, Campbell Scientific, Inc., Logan, UT) provided direct measurements of temperature.

The BOREAS group TE-05 collected measurements in the NSA and SSA on gas exchange, gas composition and tree growth. Soil respiration data collected in the BOREAS NSA and SSA to compare the soil respiration rates in different forest sites using a Li-Cor 6200 soil respiration chamber (model 6299).

This data set was gridded by BORIS staff from a vector data set received from Canadian Soil Information System (CanSIS). The original data came in two parts that covered Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The data were gridded and merged into one data set of 84 files covering the BOReal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) region. The data were gridded into the Albers Equal-Area Conic (AEAC) projection. Because the mapping of the two provinces was done separately in the original vector data, there may be discontinuities in some of the soil layers because of different interpretations of certain soil properties.

The BOREAS TE-01 team collected various data to characterize the soil-plant systems in the BOREAS SSA. Particular emphasis was placed on nutrient biochemistry, the stores and transfers of organic carbon and how the characteristics were related to measured methane fluxes. The overall transect in the Prince Albert National Park (Saskatchewan, Canada) included the major plant communities and related soils that occurred in that section of the boreal forest. Soil physical, chemical and biological measurements along the transect were used to characterize the static environment, which allowed them to be related to methane fluxes. Chamber techniques were used to provide a measure of methane production/uptake. Chamber measurements coupled with flask sampling were used to determine the seasonality of methane fluxes. This particular data set contains soil profile measurements of various nutrients at the SSA-Fen site. The data were collected from 23-MAY to 21-OCT-1994.

The RSS-04 team collected several data sets related to leaf, plant, and stand physical, optical, and chemical properties. This data set contains leaf area indices and FPAR measurements which were taken at the three conifer sites in the BOREAS SSA during August 1993 and at the jack pine tower flux and a subset of auxiliary sites during July and August 1994. The measurements were made with LAI-2000 and Ceptometer instruments. The measurements were taken for the purpose of model parameterization and to test empirical relationships that were hypothesized between biophysical parameters and remotely sensed data.

The BOReal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) Terrestrial Ecology (TE)-11 team collected several data sets in support of its efforts to characterize and interpret information on the sapflow, gas exchange, and lichen photosynthesis of boreal vegetation and meteorological data of the area studied. This data set contains the meteorological data taken in the BOREAS Southern Study Area (SSA) during 1994 and used by TE-11 for their sapflow and gas exchange data analysis.