Methods
Data contained within is derived from data publicly available through the North Temperature Lakes Long Term Ecological Research (NTL-LTER) website at the following url: https://lter.limnology.wisc.edu/. All data is for the upper meter of the water column, collected in the deepest point of the lake. For DOC concentration data and ancillary data such as pH, iron, and total N, please see the NTL-LTER website.
The file dat.w.blank.fin 7_29_16.csv contains the absorbance scans that were used to calculate the spectral metrics (NTL LTER 2012). Samples for absorbance scans were collected approximately quarterly. Absorbance scans were run on a spectrophotometer over the wavelengths from 200-800 nm. In this file, the column value is the raw value for absorbance read directly off the instrument for the corresponding wavelength. The column blank.value is the value of the DI blank taken nearest in time for the corresponding wavelength and cuvette width. The column cor.value is the blank.value column subtracted from the value column. The cor.value column was used in all subsequent analyses and calculations.
The file metrics for_analysis.csv contains the spectral metrics calculated from the absorbance scans as well as select meteorological metrics. ab.254 is raw absorbance measured by the instrument (after correcting for DI blanks), corrected for a 1 m pathlength. lin.slope.275.295 is the slope for the log transformed absorbance scan over the wavelengths 275-295 nm, determined by linear regression. nlin.slope.275.295 is the spectral slope (S275-295) over the wavelengths 275-295 nm, calculated using non-linear regression in R version 3.2.3 (R Core Team 2015), fitting the following equation:
alambda = alambdarefe-S(lambda-lambdaref)
In this equation a is the Naperian absorption coefficient (see below), lambda is the wavelength, lambdaref is the reference wavelength, and S is the spectral slope (nm-1) (Twardowski et al. 2004; Helms et al. 2008). The initial estimate supplied to the non-linear regression procedure was supplied by the value for lin.slope.275.295. lin.slope.350.400 and nlin.slope.350.400 were calculated in a similar fashion, but over the wavelengths 350-400 nm. This calculation yields the spectral slope over the wavelengths 350-400 nm (S350-400). slope.ratio is the slope ratio (SR), the ratio of S275-295 to S350-400 (Helms et al. 2008). ab.254.1cm is similar to ab.254, but is corrected for a 1 cm cuvette width. a254.nap is the Naperian absorption coefficient and is calculated from the equation:
a = 2.303A/l
In this equation, a is the Naperian absorption coefficient, A is raw absorbance measured by the spectrophotomer, and l is the path length (Green and Blough 1994). SUVA was calculated by dividing raw absorbance at 254 nm by the DOC concentration of the DOC sample collected nearest in time to the absorbance sample. SUVA is reported as Ltimesmg C-1timesm-1 (Weishaar et al. 2003).
wk.prcp, mth.prcp, and ninety prcp are precipitation totals for the 7, 30, and 90 days up to and including the sampling date (mm). These data come from the Minocqua, WI station in the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) dataset (available at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/quick-links#ghcn) (Menne et al. 2010).
wk.tmp, mth.tmp, and ninety.tmp are mean values for the mid-daily temperature in the 7, 30, and 90 days up to and including the sampling date (°C). These are from the same data source as the precipitation data.
The l.lev column contains lake level from the NTL LTER website in meters above sea level. wk.insol, mth.insol, and ninety.insol are mean solar insolation incident on a horizontal surface in the 7, 30, and 90 days up to and including the sampling date (kWh/m2/day) (these data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Sciences Data Center NASA/GEWEX SRB Project).
Monthly Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) data corresponding to the study period can be accessed at: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cirs/climdiv/ using StateCode=47 and Division=2. These data were retrieved from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI). These data were used to relate trends and synchrony in spectral metrics to moisture conditions.
The DOC column contains DOC concentration (mg L-1) for the corresponding sample date, obtained from the NTL LTER website.