Monthly topsoil and near surface microclimate temperature data for Switzerland

Climate data matching the scales at which organisms experience climatic conditions are often missing. Yet, such data on microclimatic conditions are required to better understand climate-change impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Here we combine a national network of microclimate temperature measurements with a novel radiative transfer model to map monthly minimum, mean and maximum temperatures during the vegetation period at a 10 meter spatial resolution across Switzerland. The temperature measurements took place in 107 sampling plots distributed across different habitat types, with 62 plots in forests, 22 below trees outside forests, and 23 in open grasslands. In each plot we measured temperature in the topsoil (-5cm), as well as in the air at 5cm and 100cm height above ground. Spatial interpolation was achieved by using a hybrid approach based on linear mixed effects models with input from detailed radiation estimates that account for topographic and vegetation shading, as well as other predictor variables related to the macroclimate, topography and vegetation height. Our data reveals strong horizontal and vertical variability in microclimate temperature, particularly for maximum temperatures at 5 cm above the ground and within the topsoil. Compared to macroclimate conditions as measured by weather stations outside forests, diurnal air and topsoil temperature ranges inside forests were reduced by up to 3.0 and 7.8 °C, respectively, while below trees outside forests, e.g. in hedges and below solitary trees, this buffering effect was 1.8 and 7.2 °C. We also found that in open grasslands, maximum temperatures at 5 cm above ground are on average 3.4 °C warmer than that of macroclimate, suggesting that in such habitats heat exposure close to the ground is often underestimated when using macroclimatic data. After accounting for macroclimate effects, microclimate patterns were primarily driven by radiation, with particularly strong effects on maximum temperatures. Results from spatial block cross-validation revealed predictive accuracies as measured by RSME’s ranging from 1.18 to 3.43 °C, with minimum temperatures generally being predicted more accurately than maximum temperatures. The microclimate maps presented here enable a more biologically relevant perspective when analysing climate-species interactions, which is expected to lead to a better understanding of biotic and ecosystem responses to climate and land use change.