To reduce uncertaintly in surface and groundwater elevation data, permanent benchmarks have been installed at most aquatic sites to serve as controlled location reference points. Updated elevations from the associated site resurveys are available on the data portal. Surface and groundwater elevation data products have been reprocessed, and, the corrected data will be available via the data portal by January 18, 2020.
We have discovered an error in the larval tick count data collected in 2016-2017 in Ticks sampled using drag cloths (DP1.10093.001) that affects all sites. Samples from the tick taxonomy laboratory had a count of 1 larva in the taxonomy table no matter how many individuals were present in the sample. The data will be rectified within 2-3 weeks.
The NEON microbial community composition data products have been re-processed and will be available on the NEON data portal either as provisional data (2014-12 and earlier data, 2018-10 and later data) or in the initial NEON data release (2015 through 10-2018 data) in January 2021.
The sunlit plant foliage major, minor, and trace element data (DP1.10026.001, cfc_elements table) collected in 2017 and 2018 were investigated and deemed untrustworthy. Sample major, minor, and trace elements were re-measured using foliar material from the NEON Biorepository. Following review, these new data were posted to the Data Portal on 2020-10-29.
At all sites with profiling water quality sondes on buoys, the Water quality data product (DP1.20288.001) reports the depth of the multisonde as it profiles through the water column. Data users should be aware that sensor depth is approximate, as the multisonde’s pressure transducer is not vented to the atmosphere. Therefore, barometric pressure fluctuations following calibration will cause a sensor depth discrepancy.
Errors were discovered in NEON.DOC.004931 (version A), the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD) for the Water quality (DP1.20288.001) data product. These errors impact the temperature and absorbance corrections applied to fluorescent dissolved organic matter (fDOM) data.
All sites with buoys (SUGG, BARC, FLNT, CRAM, LIRO, TOMB, BLWA, PRPO, PRLA, TOOK), need to be verified for appropriate wind direction data from the Wind speed and direction on lakes on-buoy data product (DP1.20059.001).
All NEON wind direction data at all sites under-report average wind direction frequency in the ~360 to ~5 degree range. This includes wind direction data in both 2D Wind speed and Direction data products: DP1.00001.001 and DP1.20059.001.
The Airborne Remote Sensing Data Quality Technical Working Group recently made a series of recommendations for changes to the NEON AOP data product catalog. These changes included data product name changes, as well as suspension of a subset of AOP products.
NEON has completed development of an in-house data processing pipeline to generate the microbial community composition data products and has completed optimization of the parameters to be used in the data processing pipeline. Data reprocessing is expected to begin in mid-October.
On 8/13/20, we announced some impending changes to OS biogeochemistry data products. As of today, those changes are complete. Read more to learn about how to access these data. We hope this improves the overall user experience for NEON terrestrial biogeochemistry data products.
A subset of data in the Plant presence and percent cover data product ( DP1.10058.001) did not process correctly through the data pipeline, and were missing from published data. As of September 30, 2020, the missing records have been restored.
A fix was developed for the issue of missing atmospheric pressure corrections for the soil CO2 concentration data product (DP1.00095.001). All data have now been republished and are available on the NEON Data Portal.
All water chemistry external lab data have been transformed from wide format to long format; the "externalLabData_pub" table has been replaced with the "externalLabDataByAnalyte_pub" table.
Sites flown in 2017 did not have a uniform QAQC document available for the L3 tiles – a data quality measure implemented at the start of the 2018 flight season. As of August 19, 2020, these data have been corrected and available for download.
In order to improve usability of the Observational System terrestrial biogeochemistry data products, we are repackaging several data products to deliver all of the relevant data for sample sets in one download. We hope this improves the overall user experience for NEON terrestrial biogeochemistry data products.
NEON has begun the process of reconfiguring the multisondes to report DO % saturation relative to local atmospheric pressure, which will be published as a new parameter in the water quality data product. In the interim, NEON has developed the localPressureDO R-package.
NEON recently obtained approval to begin testing small mammal blood and ear tissue samples for tick-borne pathogens rather than hantaviruses. This change will be reflected in the data product beginning in the 2020 field season.
The LI-840 Infrared Gas Analyzer requires more maintenance and has an observed failure rate higher than other NEON sensors measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide and water vapor. This has led to multiple data gaps and periods of flagged data. We are investigating the issue further.
We have recently discovered multiple instances where timestamps became out of sync between the Picarro G2131 and L2130 instruments and computers, and what was assigned to the data points upon transmission to NEON Headquarters. We are raising the science review flag for the affected time periods and investigating the possibility of data correction.