The ORNL DAAC is pleased to announce the release of a Global Soil data set :
A Global Database of Gas Fluxes from Soils after Rewetting or Thawing, Version 1.0 . Data set prepared by Kim, D.-G., R. Vargas, B. Bond-Lamberty, and M. R. Turetsky. This database contains information compiled from published studies on gas flux from soil following rewetting or thawing. The resulting database includes 222 field and laboratory observations focused on rewetting of dry soils, and 116 field laboratory observations focused on thawing of frozen soils studies conducted from 1956 to 2010. Fluxes of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, nitrogen oxide, and ammonia were compiled from the literature and the flux rates were normalized for ease of comparison.
Field observations of gas flux following rewetting of dry soils include events caused by natural rainfall, simulated rainfall in natural ecosystems, and irrigation in agricultural lands. Similarly, thawing of frozen soils include field observations of natural thawing, simulated freezing-thawing events (i.e., thawing of simulated frozen soil by snow removal), and thawing of seasonal ice in temperate and high latitude regions (Kim et al., 2011).
The compilers of the Rewetting, Thawing, and Soil Gas flux (RTSG) database (Kim, D.-G., et al., 2011) make it available to the scientific community both as a traditional static archive (ORNL DAAC) and as a dynamic community database that may be updated over time by interested users.
The dynamic version of the database is hosted on Google Docs:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AjWu6bR8SA9idHY4Tk5TdDZDMWgtMEJsUVhFOWhKLWc&hl=en.
The compilers have created a Blog entitled “Rewetting, thawing and soil gas fluxes” (http://rewettingandthawing.blogspot.com/), to provide a place where the scientific community can share and update the fast growing knowledge and data on the study of the effects of rewetting and thawing on CO2, CH4, N2O, NO and NH3 fluxes.
The ORNL DAAC will update the database on an annual basis to incorporate changes and additions submitted by the RTSG community via the Google Code site and by Kim, D.-G., R. Vargas, B. Bond-Lamberty, and M. R. Turetsky.
The ORNL DAAC is a NASA-funded data center archiving and distributing terrestrial ecology and biogeochemical dynamics data.
Kim, D.-G., Vargas, R., Bond-Lamberty, B., and Turetsky, M. R.: Effects of soil rewetting and thawing on soil gas fluxes: a review of current literature and suggestions for future research, Biogeosciences Discuss., 8, 9847-9899, doi:10.5194/bgd-8-9847-2011, 2011.