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: Minimum 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):

Data File No.	Data File Identifier	On-Line Filename	Starting Date	Periodicity of sample	End Period
1	El Verde Max Temp (1975-89)	evmn7589.txt	Jan 1, 1975	weekly	Dec 31, 1989
2	El Verde Max Temp (1990-99)	evmn9099.txt	Jan 1, 1990	daily	Dec 31, 1999
3	El Verde Max Temp (2000-current)	evmn2000.txt	Jan 1, 2000	Working days	current

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  

William McDowell	bill.mcdowell@unh.edu
Douglas Schaefer	dougschaefer@scientist.com

OTHER RESEARCHERS E-MAIL address

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. Lowest average values for minimum temperature were recorded from January to April with nearly 18 Centigrades during this period of time (see chart). During these months, the lowest average minimum temperature was recorded in 1976 ranging from 20 to 22 Centigrades (see chart). Highest minimum montly average records are shown from June to October with peak in the vecinity of 20 Centigrades. The year with lowest minimum tempearture was 1995 and 2000 with the low values near 14 and 15 Centigrades, respectively.

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 Fahrenheits.  All data are published in both Centigrades and Fahrenheits on the Web.

Data before 1974 were gathered weekly. These data are not published on this Web site. Current frequency of sampling is only during working days. Missing data-days appear in blank..

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 16: Maximum 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): N/A

INVESTIGATOR'S ASSIGNED KEYWORDS: El Verde Field Station, precipitation, rainfall, 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: J. ZIMMERMAN, A. LUGO , D.J. LODGE

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
ABBREVIATION (as it appears on the data file)	DATE	YEAR	JULIAN	MIN_F
NAME OF VARIABLE	Complete date	Collection year	Julian day	Minimum Temperature (in F)
DEFINITION OF VARIABLE	Date of collection including month, day, and year (mm/dd/yy)	Year of collection	An integer from 1 to 366 assigned to the days in a year	Minimum temperature recorded for that day in Fahrenheit
UNIT		NA	NA	Fahrenheit
PRECISION	NA	NA	NA
RANGE OR LIST OF VALUES	01/01/75...	1975..	1, .., 366	15...27
DATA TYPE	datetime	datetime	datetime	Integer
MISSING DATA CODES	None	None	None	None

VARIABLES (ATTRIBUTES):

COMPUTATIONAL METHODS:  

VARIABLE NAME	FORMULA OR DESCRIPTION
MIN_C	Centigrades = 5/9*(Fahrenheit - 32)

 

DATE OF LAST REVIEW: February 20, 2008
DATE OF LAST ENTRY: last month
STAGE OF DATA SET MANAGEMENT (dates) :
RECEIVED ENTERED:
FILED ON-LINE REVIEWED BY RESEARCHER
FILING MEDIA:
NAME OF DOCUMENTATION FILE: lterdb17.htm
NAME OF ON - LINE CATALOG: LTERDBAS
RECORD #: 17
DOCUMENT TYPE: magnetic media
PRIORITY TO BE ENTERED: first

Rev. date of this form: 8 June 2000