Research

New Carbon Flux Super Site: Innovative Methods of Atmosphere-Terrestrial Carbon Exchange Measurements and Modeling


LEAP Lab, UGA/ SRNL / BNL / NOAA / Univ. of Iowa / Duke Univ. / SREL, UGA

Introduction
We propose a suite of powerful site cross-cutting methods for reducing uncertainties in current CO2 flux measurements.

Carbon Flux Super Site:
1) Located in one of the most productive regions of the US.
2) Presents a genuine opportunity to refine our understanding and measurement methods of carbon uptakes.
3) Provides additional insight into surface exchange mechanism especially in non-ideal conditions.


The integrated team work combines forward and inverse regional modeling to spatio-temporal interpretation of improved flux measurements obtained from airborne and stationary flux platforms.


Goal:
To produce new, improved and scientifically more accurate estimate of atmosphere-terrestrial ecosystem exchange processes.

Aims:
1. To determine nocturnal atmospheric footprint estimation and validation
2. To characterize flow anomalies in stable boundary layers
3. To examine the importance of atmospheric low-level jets on local and regional fluxes
4. To provide a quantitative, spatially, and temporally resolved description of carbon, water, and energy exchange at the regional scale.
5. To validate a recently developed, alternate method of measuring fluxes for conditions where eddy-covariance flux measurements are unreliable.

Sponsor:
The US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Terrestrial Carbon Processes Program

 

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Equipment and facilities

tall tower

Meteorological Instruments and Data Acquisition Systems

Meteorological towers
11 3-D Sonic Anemometers
4 Krypton Hygrometers
3 CO2 Gas Analyzers
4 Net Radiometers
CR10X Data Loggers
CR 9000 Measurement and Control System
CR 5000 Measurement and Control System
CR21X Micro Data Logger
CR7 Data Loggers
CR-23X Data Logger
CR-1000 Data Logger
3 Weather Stations with Downlink


Tracer Release and Tracer Sampling Systems

Tracer release systems
4 Fast Response Tracer Analyzers
2 Gas Chromatograph
Sequential Bag Samplers


Doppler Sodars and Other Supporting Infrastructure

3 Doppler sodars
RASS
2 tethered balloon meteorological tower systems


Computational Facilities

Silicon Graphics multiprocessor Linux-based system (Altix 3000)
Silicon Graphics multiprocessor Unix-based system (ORIGIN 2000)