NCAR’s Integrated Surface Flux System (ISFS): A campaign driven micronet in support of micrometeorological research

Abstract:

ISFS supports field campaigns designed to study energy fluxes, ecosystem responses to meteorological drivers, and coupling between land surface and atmospheric processes. Variables often measured or derived include momentum fluxes, sensible and latent heat fluxes, short- and long-wave radiation, soil temperature, soil moisture and soil heat flux, along with P-T-U and wind measurements. Each ISFS micronet is tailored and structured around diverse ecosystems and deployments can be scaled up from a single site of an array of towers to address fine-scale atmospheric turbulence to a network of high-density eddy covariance flux towers that can support regional scale modeling and various process studies. An overview of the ISFS sensor suite, data ingest system, and archival display will be presented. We illustrate ISFS capabilities and the challenges faced by highlighting various deployments over the years as examples. By sharing the ISFS perspective on what it takes to maintain atmospheric flux systems in heterogeneous, foreign and challenging landscapes, we hope to contribute to the discussion on how the community can shape their observational network design around improving the data flow from acquisition to quality control to archiving.