A DATA SET is a series of observations collected by the same methodology. Each data set should have documentation sufficient for someone unfamiliar with the research to replicate the study. Data sets may be broken into subsets (data files) that are discrete in space and time, in that order. The documentation for a data set should include all spatial and temporal subdivisions of the data.

(Data, Abstract, Methods, Variables)

NOTES:

• Add rows to tables or lines to paragraphs as you need them for entering your data.
• Contact emelendez@lternet.edu if you have any question.
• See online Guidelines (http://luq.lternet.edu/datamng/imdocs/division.html) to help you fill this form

PERSON(S) COMPLETING THIS FORM: E-MAIL ADDRESS:

DATA SET IDENTIFIER: Maximum temperature at El Verde since 1975

PROJECT TITLE: Meteorology at El Verde

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:Rainfall and temperature have been measured at the El Verde Station since 1964, twenty two years previous to LUQ LTER 1. In McDowell and Estrada-Pinto ⁽¹⁾, the collection procedures, the daily raw precipitation data from 1964 to 1986, and some summary statistics of the precipitation data covered on that period of time were reported. Meteorological sensors were installed at the El Verde Field Station's flat concrete rooftop, 3 m above the ground surface at an elevation of 350 m asl after the September 1989 (Hugo) hurricane. Since 1995, rainfall and temperature data since 1975 and sensors data since 1990 from the above records are being published on the LUQ LTER Web site. Begining in 2003, Ramírez and Meléndez-Colom report a summary of the data from these data set online. The latter is a downloadable pdf file that can be found at: http://ites.upr.edu/EVFS/MeteorSummary2004.pdf

(1) William H. McDowell and Alejo Estrada-Pinto.1988. Rainfall at El Verde Station, 1964-1986. Center for Energy and Environmenta Research (CEER), Technical Report No. CEER T-228.

LTER CORE AREAS: (Annotate all that apply)

Primary Productivity

LEF LTER 1 RESEARCH TOPIC: (Annotate all that apply)

Environmental monitoring

We define a data file as a component of a data set. A data set can have only one data file or more. Basically, different data files have different data structures or format.
DATA SET FILES (SUBSETS):

Note: This data set is under revision:

RESEARCH LOCATION: El Verde Field Station (EVFS) of the Institute for Tropical Ecosystem Studies (ITES) of the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras. The station is located on the eastern end of Puerto Rico in the Luquillo Experimental Forest at N 18° 19' 22", W 65° 49' 13". Elevation of the laboratory buildings at the station is 350 m (McDowell and Estrada-Pinto 1988).

INVESTIGATORS:

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS E-MAIL address

Alonso Ramirez

alonso_ites@yahoo.com

OTHER RESEARCHERS E-MAIL address

William McDowell	bill.mcdowell@unh.edu
Douglas Schaefer	dougschaefer@scientist.com
John Bithorn	jbithorn@upracd.upr.clu.edu
Alejo Estrada-Pinto

CONTACT PERSONS E-MAIL address Phone Number (Include area code)

Eda C. Melendez-Colom

emelendez@lternet.edu

(787) 764-0000 (ext. 4943)

SOURCE OF FUNDING (SPONSOR): NSF - LTER

DATA SET ABSTRACT: Daily emperature has been measured at the El Verde Field Station since 1975 (see methods). Monthly averages have been calculated. Maximum values for maximum temperature were recorded from May to October with a range from 29 to 30 and peaks of 29.7 Centigrade in October. The months of October through December show the most dramatic increase, specially December (see chart). Highest average maximum temperatures during these years were recorded in 1998 and 1999 (See chart). Max monthly temperatures appear to be increasing from this years on.

DATA SET METHODS: During first period of record the El Verde Field Station was administered by the Center for Energy and Environmental Research (CEER). Since 1988 the Station has been administered by what was known then as the Terrestrial Ecology Division (TED) of the University of Puerto Rico. In 1997 TED became the Institute of Tropical Ecosystem Studies (ITES) under the Natural Science Faculty of the University of Puerto Rico at the Rio Piedras Campus.

Originally data are recorded in Fahrenheit.  All data are published in both Centigrade and Fahrenheit on the Web.

In several occasions the data gathered appeared to be wrong for several reasons. From January 1975 through April 1978 recorded maximum temperature data appeared to be too high. They were substituted with long-term average maximum temperature that were calculated using the data from this data set from January, 1979 to December, 1986. The records from October and November 1978 were missing. For this reason these two months hold the calculated long-term average maximum temperature. For the period of October 1987 through October 1989 data were substituted with long-term maximum temperature since the recorded data appeared too low. From November 1989 through August 1992 the data was substituted for the same reason with adjusted data from El Verde Meteorological Station measurements, which is located on the top of the Laboratories since then. There was no data gathered from El Verde Meteorological Station for the month of January, 1992. The data for this month were substituted with the calculated long-term average maximum temperature. The data from 1988 to1992 was read as current not maximum temperature. Adjustments  were done based on daily max data from two other stations, Pico del Este and Fajardo. Finally, from September 1992 through April 1997 recorded maximum temperature appeared to be too high and were substituted with adjusted El Verde Meteorological Station data.

Norma Ortega and B. Hageny enter data until 1988, and McDowell corrected and updated them by June 1988. From 1988 to 1992, Violeta del Valle (CEER) entered the data, Nayda Ortiz (ITES) entered them from 1992 to Aug 2000, and data are currently gathered by John Bithorn and entered by John Monge (ITES). Since 1989 data entry has been supervised by Eda Melendez (ITES). Since 1991  Douglas Schaefer has corrected  and updated the data.

REFERENCES:

CROSS-REFERENCES (other data sets related to this one): LTERDBAS 14: Rainfall at El Verde since 1975; LTERDBAS 17: Minimum temperature at El Verde since 1975; LTERDB 33: Metereological data from towers (pre-Hugo) or rooftop (post-Hugo) at El Verde

SAMPLE LOCATION: N/A

STORAGE SITES (of data files): ITES, Data Mngr.'s Cabinet DM333-01, Drawer #1

INVESTIGATOR'S ASSIGNED KEYWORDS: El Verde Field Station, maximum temperature, LEF

LEF LTER OFFICIAL KEYWORDS (See table): EL VERDE, TABONUCO, CLIMATE

PUBLICATIONS:

DISSEMINATION: UNRESTRICTED

REASONS TO RESTRICT DATA IN THIS DATA SET BEYOND ITS TWO YEAR POLICY PERIOD*:

*WILL HAVE TO BE APPROVED BY LTER PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: N. BROKAW, A. LUGO

FILING
___ "File" copy only : Data Management will only file an electronic copy of the data file and its documentation
__X_ "Enter" data on-line : Data Management will be in charge of entering the data on computer files (Contact Eda C. Meléndez)

SITES DESCRIPTIONS: El Verde is at 350 m elevation, with mean rainfall 3450 mm per year. The soils are of volcanic origin. Work on the plant community at El Verde has focused on the 16-ha Luquillo Forest Dynamics Plot (LFDP). The commonest are Prestoea acuminata (a palm), Casearia arborea, Dacryodes excelsa, Manilkara bidentata, Inga laurina, and Sloanea berteriana. The commonest shrubs are Palicourea riparia, Psychotria beteriana, and Piper glabrescens. Grasses, ferns, and forbs are frequent on the ground, especially in canopy gaps; epiphytes are common; and vines are uncommon.

Geographical positional system (GPS) Coordinates for each location:

location	latitude	longitude
El Verde Field Station Lab (roof)	18° 19' 22" N	65° 49' 13"

VARIABLES (ATTRIBUTES):

FILE NAME OR #ABOVE (all in which the variable appears)	1,2,3	1,2,3	1,2,3	1,2,3	1,2,3
ABBREVIATION (as it appears on the data file)	DATE	YEAR	JULIAN	MAX_F	MAX_C
NAME OF VARIABLE	Complete date	Collection year	Julian day	Maximum Temperature (in F)	Maximum Temperature (in C)
DEFINITION OF VARIABLE	Date of collection including month, day, and year (mm/dd/yyyy )	Year of collection	An integer from 1 to 366 assigned to the days in a year	Maximum temperature recorded for that day in Fahrenheit	Maximum temperature recorded for that day converted to Centigrades
UNIT				fahrenheit	celsius
PRECISION
RANGE OR LIST OF VALUES			1, .., 366
DATA TYPE	datetime	datetime	datetime	decimal	decimal
MISSING DATA CODES	None	None	None	None	None

COMPUTATIONAL METHODS:

FOR DATA MANAGER USE ONLY

DATE OF LAST REVIEW: April 22, 2009
DATE OF LAST ENTRY: last month
STAGE OF DATA SET MANAGEMENT (dates):
RECEIVED: before 1989
ENTERED: before 1989
FILED ON-LINE 1995
REVIEWED BY RESEARCHER Dec 2000
FILING MEDIA:
NAME OF DOCUMENTATION FILE: lterdb16.htm
NAME OF ON - LINE CATALOG: LTERDBAS
RECORD #: 16
DOCUMENT TYPE: magnetic media
PRIORITY TO BE ENTERED: first

Rev. date of this form: 15 July 2001