i-Box (Innsbruck Box) – processed eddy-covariance data: 1-min statistics

Abstract

The dataset contains eddy-covariance data from five i-Box stations in the Austrian Inn Valley, which have been processed to 1-min statistics. The i-Box is a long-term measurement platform, including a small network of eddy-covariance stations in the lower Inn Valley, to study boundary-layer processes in mountainous terrain. More information about the i-Box can be found at https://www.uibk.ac.at/acinn/research/atmospheric-dynamics/projects/innsbruck-box-i-box.html.en and in Rotach et al. (2017).

Data description

Station locations

The present dataset contains processed data from five i-Box stations located in the Austrian Inn Valley. The Inn Valley is an approximately southwest-northeast oriented valley in the western part of Austria, with a depth of about 2000 m and a width of about 2 km at the valley floor. The locations of the sites are shown in the overview figure i-Box_sites.pdf.

• VF0 is located at the almost flat valley floor. The site is surrounded by grassland and agricultural fields. (47.305°N, 11.622°E, 545 m MSL)

• SF8 is located at the foot of the north sidewall next to a steep embankment between an agricultural field and a concrete parking lot. (47.326°N, 11.652°E, 575 m MSL)

• SF1 is located on an almost flat plateau running along the northern valley sidewall. The site is mainly surrounded by grassland and agricultural fields. (47.317°N, 11.616°E, 829 m MSL)

• NF10 is located on an approximately 10 deg slope on the south sidewall, covered by grassland. (47.300°N, 11.673°E, 930 m MSL)

• NF27 is located on a steep, grass-covered slope on the south sidewall, with a slope angle of about 25 deg. (47.288°N, 11.631°E, 1009 m MSL)

Further information about station locations can be found in Rotach et al. (2017) and Lehner et al. (2021).

Temporal coverage

The dataset contains processed data between 2014 and 2020. Some instruments were replaced and new instruments were added during this period. Data gaps occur as a result of instrument malfunctions and maintenance.

Instrumentation

Each station is equipped with at least one sonic anemometer and a gas analyzer. The instrumentation usually consists of a CSAT3 sonic anemometer (Campbell Scientific, USA) and KH20 Krypton hygrometer (Campbell Scientific) or an EC150 open-path infrared gas analyzer (Campbell Scientific). In 2020, several of the instruments were replaced with an Irgason (Campbell Scientific), which combines an open-path infrared gas analyzer with a sonic anemometer. Pressure, air temperature, and humidity used for calculating flux corrections are measured with Setra 278 sensors (Setra Systems, USA) and Rotronic HC2A-S temperature and humidity probes (Rotronic, Switzerland).

• VF0: CSAT3 and EC150 at 4.0 m, CSAT3 at 8.7 m, CSAT3 and KH20 (until July 2020) or Irgason (since July 2020) at 16.9 m

• SF8: CSAT3 at 6.1, CSAT3 and KH20 (until September 2020) or Irgason (since September 2020) at 11.2 m

• SF1: CSAT3 and KH20 (until June 2020) or Irgason (since June 2020) at 6.8 m

• NF10: CSAT3 and KH20 (until June 2020) or Irgason (since June 2020) at 5.7 m

• NF27: CSAT3 at 1.5 (since September 2017), CSAT3 and KH20 (until November 2016) or Irgason (since September 2017) 6.8 m

Further information about the instrumentation can be found in Rotach et al. (2017), Lehner et al. (2021), and in the ACINN database:

• VF0: https://acinn-data.uibk.ac.at/pages/i-box-kolsass.html

• SF8: https://acinn-data.uibk.ac.at/pages/i-box-terfens.html

• SF1: https://acinn-data.uibk.ac.at/pages/i-box-eggen.html

• NF10: https://acinn-data.uibk.ac.at/pages/i-box-weerberg.html

• NF27: https://acinn-data.uibk.ac.at/pages/i-box-hochhaeuser.html

Data processing

Raw 20-Hz data were quality controlled and rotated into a streamline coordinate system using double rotation before block averaging the data to 1-min statistics, without previous filtering. Flux corrections were applied to the turbulence statistics, including a frequency response correction (Aubinet et al. 2012) with spectral models following Moore (1986), Højstrup (1981), and Kaimal et al. (1972); a sonic heat-flux correction of the vertical heat flux and the temperature variance (Schotanus et al. 1983); a WPL correction of the vertical moisture flux (Webb et al. 1980); and an Oxygen correction of the vertical moisture flux for data from Krypton hygrometers (van Dijk et al. 2003).

The quality control procedures include the removal of data during periods of instrument malfunction as indicated by the instruments’ quality flags, a despiking, the removal of data points exceeding 30 m s^-1 for the horizontal wind components, 10 m s^-1 for the vertical wind velocity, and 50 g m³ for water vapor density, and the removal of sonic temperature data outside the range -20 – 40°C. The removed data are replaced with random values drawn from a Gaussian distribution, with its mean and standard deviation calculated over a 30-s data window.

Quality flags are based on the criteria described in Stiperski and Rotach (2016):

• -1: More than 10% of the raw data within the averaging period are replaced during the quality control.

• 0: More than 90% of the raw data fulfill the quality control criteria.

• 1: In addition to fulfilling the quality control criteria, the skewness is within the range -2–2 and the kurtosis is less than 8.

• 2: In addition to the above criteria, the stationarity test by Foken and Wichura (1996) is below 30% and the uncertainty is less than 50% based on Stiperski and Rotach (2016) and Wyngaard (1973)

Data files

• i-Box_sites.pdf contains a map of the i-Box stations.

• list_variables.pdf contains a list of variable names with a short description.

• SITENAME_1min.zip contains the processed turbulence statistics, split into yearly files. There is more than one file per year if the instrumentation changed during the year or because of memory restrictions during the processing.

Acknowledgments

Data processing was performed in the framework of the TExSMBL (Turbulent Exchange in the Stable Mountain Boundary Layer) project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under grant V 791-N. Data were processed on the LEO HPC infrastructure of the University of Innsbruck.

References

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