Managing natural resources and addressing climate change depends on our understanding of fluxes - how things like energy, water, and carbon move between the biosphere and the atmosphere. These fluxes are regulated by environmental processes including turbulent transport of mass and energy, evapotranspiration, photosynthesis, microbial respiration, and are also affected by human activities and natural disturbances.
Scientists around the world have set up nearly 1,000 towers instrumented to constantly collect data about energy, water, and carbon fluxes – they are observing how the biosphere breathes. The key measurement technique used to collect these flux data is called eddy covariance. It is the gold standard to quantify total fluxes at the ecosystem scale without probing every plant and inch of soil on the landscape. All of this data is shared through a global ‘network of networks’ called FLUXNET with a mission to facilitate collaboration and data sharing.
FLUXNET is much more than its datasets. It is a scientific community dedicated to understanding and communicating how ecosystems function and how Earth systems are changing. Having flux data in one place allows scientists to do big-picture thinking about climate change and develop models. Scientists also partner and engage with stakeholders to address applied environmental challenges with more local societal benefits. FLUXNET data and models are used for scientific discoveries and to inform local and international ecosystem management efforts, including climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.
The FLUXNET Community Council, supported by the National Science Foundation’s Accelerating Research through International Network-to-Network Collaborations program (NSF AccelNet Award 2113978) is a project advancing new initiatives in education, data development, and community building. The FLUXNET Outreach Working Group, comprised of volounteer members of the FLUXNET community, is dedicated to disseminating flux science to a broad audience, including the development of Meet the Fluxers Podcast.
