Research Data

Black Rock Forest collects, manages and shares a variety of data, including environmental data from the Forest’s five-station environmental monitoring network. Select biotic data on forest plants  and animals, experimental data and historical records, GIS layers, maps and photographs are available on this website or by request.

Weather and climate data from the Open Lowlands and Ridgetop environmental stations are available online, both in near-real time and as downloadable datasets from 1995. These stations record on an hourly basis air and soil temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, wind speed and direction, precipitation, and barometric pressure; the Open Lowlands station collects a variety of other atmospheric, energy balance, and snowpack data.  A third station in the network, the Cascade Brook stream station, features a 120-degree v-notch weir and pressure transducer in a stilling well to track steam depth and flow in real time.  During growing season, sensors monitor water temperature, pH, conductivity, and dissolved oxygen. 

The two other stations in the network are a weather station on the Fire Tower in the middle of the Forest, and the Building Station in the Science Center, which tracks energy and water usage as well as interior climate.  All stations in the network use radio telemetry to transmit data to a Base Station in the Science Center once each hour.

Legacy data on forest growth, collected since 1930, are available online in the Calvin Stillman Research Archive, thanks to the generosity of members of the Stillman family.

Data Catalog

All BRF-managed data are listed in our Data Catalog. Requests for data not available online should be made to Black Rock Forest’s Research and Data Manager, Kate Terlizzi. 

Other Data Resources

Data on precipitation from the National Acid Deposition Program site at Black Rock Forest (station NY99 formely located at West Point) are available through the NADP website. Data since 1983 weekly, seasonal, and annual acidity (hydrogen ion concentrations) and concentrations of sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium chloride, and conductivity.  Data from the seismographic station adjacent to the Science Center (select BRNY) are available through the Lamont Doherty Cooperative Seismic Network. 

Forest Legacy Data

Many types of research data have been collected and stored at Black Rock Forest ...