A global data collection network has built a strong foundation for carbon cycle understanding.  

The AmeriFlux Network, which is supported by the Department of Energy, connects scientists from across the Western Hemisphere studying the exchange of carbon, water, and energy between ecosystems and the atmosphere. Since its launch in 1996, AmeriFlux has built a data record from 213 sites worldwide, called FLUXNET, representing major climate and ecological biomes. The FLUXNET2015 dataset, released in 2016 as an update to the 2007 release, has more measurement tower sites, a longer data record, and uses new methods for filling data gaps and quantifying uncertainties. Measurements of carbon dioxide, water, and energy flows between ecosystems and the atmosphere are taken at 30-minute intervals, and extend as far back as 1995.

The extended and extensive coverage of FLUXNET2015 data can help answer fundamental questions about ecosystems, climate, and land use and help bridge the gap between field observations and large-scale tools such as climate models and remote-sensing efforts by NOAA, NASA, and others. In the first full year of its release, the FLUXNET synthesis dataset has already been used by more than 2,000 science teams from around the world, adding up to more than 28,000 unique downloads of AmeriFlux site data.

AmeriFlux sites coordinate research investments from DOE, NSF and its National Ecological Observatory Network, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, and the USDA Forest Service.