The MUREX (Monitoring the Usable soil Reservoir Experimentally) experiment was designed to provide continuous time series of field data over a long period, in order to improve and validate the Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Transfer (SVAT) parameterisations employed in meteorological models. Intensive measurements were performed during more than three years over an agricultural fallow located in Southwestern France. In order to capture the main processes controlling land-atmosphere exchanges, the local climate was fully characterized, and surface water and energy fluxes, vegetation biomass, soil moisture profiles, surface soil moisture and surface and soil temperature were monitored. Additional physiological measurements were carried out during selected periods in order to describe the biological control of the fluxes.

    The MUREX land-surface experiment started in 1994. Continuous measurements were performed until May, 1998. It is one of the very few field experiments having monitored the surface energy and water budgets for more than a couple of months. This dataset addresses hourly to monthly and seasonal time scales in the interaction of the atmosphere with the underlying land surface.The MUREX field experiment was a joint effort of Météo-France/CNRM (Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques, Toulouse, France), CESBIO (Centre d'Etudes Spatiales de la Biosphère, Toulouse, France) and LTHE (Laboratoire d'Etude des Transferts en Hydrologie et Environnement, Grenoble, France). This work was funded by the Conseil Régional de Midi-Pyrénées, the Programme National de Recherche en Hydrologie, and by participants to the field programme (Météo-France/CNRM, CESBIO, LTHE).

Bessemoulin et al. 1996: Un programme de suivi du cycle annuel des échanges de masse et d'énergie entre sol, végétation, et atmosphère. Premiers enseignements.

Calvet et al. 1998a: An interactive vegetation SVAT model tested against data from six contrasting sites.

Calvet et al. 1998b: Retrieving the root-zone soil moisture from surface soil moisture or temperature estimates: A feasibility study based on field measurements.

Calvet et al. 1999: A land-surface field experiment to study the annual cycle of the energy and water budgets.

Gonzalez-Sosa et al. 1999: Mulched versus non-mulched modelling of observed heat and water exchanges of a fallow land covered with a plant-residue mulch layer.

   The monthly total precipitation for 3 years.

   The observed monthly-averaged energy balance components. The green line represents the net radiation, the blue line represents the latent heat flux, the red line represents the sensible heat flux, and the orange line represents the ground heat flux.

   The vertical profile of the volumetric water content over the 3 year period.

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