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Glossary
  • Microclimate: The climate of a specific place that differs from the surrounding climate due to landscape features and vegetation
  • Foredune: The dune closest to the beach, which is the most recently formed and only partially stabilized by grasses
  • Backdune: A dune further away from the beach, which is older and has been stabilized by grasses and trees
  • Interdune: The valley formed between the foredune and backdune
  • Blowout: A landscape feature created when vegetation is removed from a dune and sand has blown away
  • Swale: (or panne) An intermittent wetland, fed by groundwater and runoff, which forms in low areas such as blowouts or interdunal troughs

 

 

Weather Stations

Background and recent data from the Indiana Dunes microclimate project

About the project

Background

The Indiana Dunes maintains a great diversity of habitats due to the ever-shifting sands and the resulting variation in landscape and hydrology.  The habitats (including beach, foredune grassland, interdunal swale, black oak savanna, forest, inland marsh, and tallgrass prairie) are a result of an interplay between microclimates and plant communities. Since dunal habitats lack buffering provided by the deep soils found elsewhere in the Midwest they also have a high level of environmental variation over time within each habitat.

Goals

  1. Quantify the role of different plant genotypes and species in shaping their micro-environment (environmental phenotype)
  2. Quantify the role of the micro-environment in shaping the composition of plant populations and community (environmental filtering)
  3. Provide long-term environmental monitoring to develop the Indiana Dunes as model for ecosystem genomics

About the microclimate stations

  • We have 10 paired microclimate stations, on 5 weather stations. The paired microclimate stations are about 10 feet apart
  • See pictures in our photo gallery

 Weather station positions

  1. Interdune station - data, map and photo, all photos
  2. Backdune station - data, map and photo, all photos
  3. Blowout station - data, map and photo, all photos
  4. Woodland station - data map and photo, all photos
  5. Foredune station - data, all photos, Jack Pine Savanna, location  41.679518°N, 87.013922°W

Update summary

Latest data

  • Scroll down for each sensor -- Background gray-scale indicates light intensity

Air temperature this day

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Soil temperature this day

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Air moisture this day

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Soil moisture this day

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Leaf wetness this day

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Rainfall this day

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Wind speed this day

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Air temperature this week

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Soil temperature this week

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Air moisture this week

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Soil moisture this week

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Leaf wetness this week

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Rainfall this week

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Air temperature this month

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Soil temperature this month

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Air moisture this month

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Soil moisture this month

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Leaf wetness this month

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Rainfall this month

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Wind speed this month

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Document Actions
Interpreting the environmental data
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