A Multiscale Soil Moisture and Freeze–Thaw Monitoring Network on the Third Pole

Multisphere interactions over the Tibetan Plateau directly impact its surrounding climate and environment at a variety of spatiotemporal scales. Remote sensing and modeling are expected to provide hydrometeorological data needed for these process studies, but in situ observations are required to support their calibration and validation. For this purpose, we have established a dense monitoring network on the central Tibetan Plateau to measure two state variables (soil moisture and temperature) at three spatial scales (1.0°, 0.3°, and 0.1°) and four soil depths (0–5, 10, 20, and 40 cm). The experimental area is characterized by low biomass, high soil moisture dynamic range, and typical freeze–thaw cycle. The network consists of 56 stations with their elevation varying over 4470–4950 m. As auxiliary parameters of this network, soil texture and soil organic carbon content are measured at each station to support further studies. To guarantee continuous and high-quality data, tremendous efforts have been made to protect the data-logger from soil water intrusion, to calibrate soil moisture sensors, and to upscale the point measurements. As the highest soil moisture network above sea level in the world, our network meets the requirement for evaluating a variety of soil moisture products and for soil moisture scaling analyses. It also directly contributes to the soil–water–ice–air–ecosystem interaction studies on the third pole. The data will be publicized via the International Soil Moisture Network and the recent 2-yr data will become accessible soon.