Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content
  • Feedback

    • United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN) Standardized Soil Moisture and Soil Moisture Climatology

    Metadata Updated: September 19, 2023

    The U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) was designed to monitor the climate of the United States using research quality instrumentation located within representative pristine environments. This Standardized Soil Moisture (SSM) and Soil Moisture Climatology (SMC) product set is derived using the soil moisture observations from the USCRN. The hourly soil moisture anomaly (SMANOM) is derived by subtracting the MEDIAN from the soil moisture volumetric water content (SMVWC) and dividing the difference by the interquartile range (IQR = 75th percentile - 25th percentile) for that hour: SMANOM = (SMVWC - MEDIAN) / (IQR). The soil moisture percentile (SMPERC) is derived by taking all the values that were used to create the empirical cumulative distribution function (ECDF) that yielded the hourly MEDIAN and adding the current observation to the set, recalculating the ECDF, and determining the percentile value of the current observation. Finally, the soil temperature for the individual layers is provided for the dataset user convenience.

    The SMC files contain the MEAN, MEDIAN, IQR, and decimal fraction of available data that are valid for each hour of the year at 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 cm depth soil layers as well as for a top soil layer (TOP) and column soil layer (COLUMN). The TOP layer consists of an average of the 5 and 10 cm depths, while the COLUMN layer includes all available depths at a location, either two layers or five layers depending on soil depth. The SSM files contain the mean VWC, SMANOM, SMPERC, and TEMPERATURE for each of the depth layers described above. File names are structured as CRNSSM0101-STATIONNAME.csv and CRNSMC0101-STATIONNAME.csv. SSM stands for Standardized Soil Moisture and SCM represent Soil Moisture Climatology. The first two digits of the trailing integer indicate major version and the second two digits minor version of the product.

    Access & Use Information

    License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

    Downloads & Resources

    Dates

    Metadata Date June 23, 2023
    Metadata Created Date August 18, 2023
    Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2023
    Reference Date(s) December 10, 2021 (publication)
    Frequency Of Update monthly

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from ncdc

    Other Data Resources

    Graphic Preview

    Station Picture

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Date June 23, 2023
    Metadata Created Date August 18, 2023
    Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2023
    Reference Date(s) December 10, 2021 (publication)
    Responsible Party NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (Point of Contact)
    Contact Email
    Guid gov.noaa.ncdc:C01654
    Access Constraints Cite as: Leeper, R. D., & Palecki, M. A. (2021). United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN) Standardized Soil Moisture and Soil Moisture Climatology [Data set]. [indicate subset used]. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. https://doi.org/10.25921/PYFX-AW93. [access date]., Distribution liability: NOAA and NCEI make no warranty, expressed or implied, regarding these data, nor does the fact of distribution constitute such a warranty. NOAA and NCEI cannot assume liability for any damages caused by any errors or omissions in these data. If appropriate, NCEI can only certify that the data it distributes are an authentic copy of the records that were accepted for inclusion in the NCEI archives., Use liability: NOAA and NCEI cannot provide any warranty as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of furnished data. Users assume responsibility to determine the usability of these data. The user is responsible for the results of any application of this data for other than its intended purpose.
    Bbox East Long -66.0
    Bbox North Lat 72.0
    Bbox South Lat 18.0
    Bbox West Long 172.0
    Coupled Resource
    Frequency Of Update monthly
    Graphic Preview Description Station Picture
    Graphic Preview File https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/metadata/images/uscrn-site-image.png
    Graphic Preview Type PNG
    Harvest Object Id 4466343f-2232-494c-ad19-311a0a737bd4
    Harvest Source Id 2cb3ef77-1683-4c2a-9119-dc65e50917c6
    Harvest Source Title ncdc
    Licence This dataset is available for only 114 station locations in the CONUS and one station in southern Alaska. Therefore, while an excellent assessment of conditions at these locations is available, these data should not be interpolated between stations due to their coarse resolution.
    Lineage The dataset origin is internal to the U.S. Climate Reference Network Program at NCEI, taking quality controlled USCRN observations of soil moisture, producing a climatology for each hour of everyday of the year, and using this climatology and the original observations to create standardized soil moisture data values.
    Metadata Language eng; USA
    Metadata Type geospatial
    Old Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[172.0, 18.0], [-66.0, 18.0], [-66.0, 72.0], [172.0, 72.0], [172.0, 18.0]]]}
    Progress onGoing
    Spatial Data Service Type
    Spatial Reference System
    Spatial Harvester True
    Temporal Extent Begin 2009

    Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.