These data are from a study conducted at Black Rock Forest in Cornwall, New York, USA during 2020 and 2021. This study was conduct to assess the ecophysiological responses of red oak (Quercus rubra) and red maple (Acer rubrum) trees in a temperate broadleaf forests to a spring frost in 2020 that that defoliated red oak trees, but not red maples. We used 2021—a year without a defoliation event—as a reference year. The datasets include tree-level measurements of (1) basal area increment for the early growing season, late growing season, and entire growing season and (2) leaf-level gas exchange (Amax, gsw, and WUE) for red oak (Quercus rubra) and red maple (Acer rubrum). These data are associated with the manuscript “Compensatory Responses of Leaf Physiology Reduce Effects of Spring Frost Defoliation on Temperate Forest Tree Carbon Uptake” by Reinmann et al.2023 in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.