Occasional High Soil Moisture Values: Update

This is an update to the earlier data notification, "Occasional High Soil Moisture Values", published in November of 2019.

An interim solution is starting to be implemented at all terrestrial sites that is expected to increase soil water content (DP1.00094.001) data availability, but may result in a step change in the soil moisture time series until all data are reprocessed through a new data processing system.

The interim solution will replace the current calibration coefficients used by the sensors with the default manufacturer coefficients. This change will prevent the implausibly high soil moistures that were sometimes observed at many sites, which will minimize data quality flagging and thereby increase data availability. However, the change may result in a step change in the soil moisture time series and increase the reported measurement uncertainty since the default coefficients are not optimized for the different soil types. The upper range QA/QC threshold will be increased from 0.4 cm3 cm-3 on a site-specific basis as the change is implemented, which is expected to be before the end of September 2021 for most sites. The long term solution remains to reprocess all previously collected to apply consistent coefficients that are optimized for local soil type, but this is not expected to occur during 2021.

Please use the Contact Us form for further inquiries; select DP1.10094.001 in the Data Product dropdown list and include the term "PRB0040665" in the body of your request.