Alpine Vegetation Trends in Glacier National Park, Montana 2003-2018

The focus of this dataset is soil temperature collected on four mountain summits in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA from 2003 through 2018. Two summit sites were established in 2003 on Dancing Lady and Bison Mountain, east of the continental divide. Two additional summit sites were established in 2004 on Pitamakin and Mt. Seward, also east of the continental divide. These four summit sites comprise a target region set up in accordance with the Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA). GLORIA was initiated by the University of Vienna in 2000 and protocols for operating target regions have been refined and revised since then. Sixty-nine GLORIA target regions now exist throughout the world; 16 are in the U.S.A. Current protocols are available at: https://gloria.ac.at/downloads/manual. Along with the plant surveys which took place every five years, temperature loggers were buried 10cm into the substrate on each aspect and on the highest point of each summit and set to record at one hour intervals. Some loggers were lost or their batteries failed before being replaced by new loggers but other logger locations recorded near continuous soil temperature readings since 2003. This will enable on site climate data to be used in analyzing the alpine plant data by looking for snow cover patterns and timing and length of growing season. These loggers were downloaded and replaced every 3-5 years and are currently still on site. A plant survey and temperature data recovery are planned for summer 2019.