Spatiotemporally continuous temperature monitoring using optical fibers (Loop1) in the internal forest areas in Alaska for the period from 2017 to 2019

This is the third report of the annually recurring, continuous measurements of the fiber-optic DTS (distributed temperature sensing) system using Raman-scattering optical time domain reflectometry, implemented at a research site in the interior of Alaska (Poker Flat Research Range). This is the last portion of the measurement (called “Loop1”), which started in 2012, resumed in 2017 after the one-year intermission due to the sensor cable failures, and terminated indefinitely in 2019. In this period, a fiber-optic cable sensor was deployed across the landscape to measure temperatures at high spatiotemporal resolution (0.5-meter and 30-minute intervals) horizontally across the different land surface cover types. It also had four sub-sections where the cable sensor was set in coil configurations (1.2 m high), installed vertically half below and half above the ground. The total cable ran 1.9 km for this period of measurements, within which about a 1.4 km section covered horizontal surface paths. This dataset contains the measurements from September 23, 2017 to September 6, 2019 (372 observation days). Due to potential deterioration of the measurement quality because of occasional partial and total interruptions, and of the occasional DTS equipment malfunctioning, this period of data is archived separately from the previous datasets.