Skip to main content

GlobalChange.gov

Utility

  • About USGCRP
  • Agencies

Global search

  • Understand Climate Change
  • Assess National Climate Assessment
  • Explore USGCRP Highlights
  • Browse Reports & Resources
  • Engage Connect & Participate

You are here

  • About USGCRP
  • Highlights

Supporting twenty years of carbon cycle understanding

Posted
Sep 6, 2019
Observations, Carbon Cycle

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.

AmeriFlux FLUXNET2015 data collection sites overlaid on a map of global land cover types.

AmeriFlux FLUXNET2015 data collection sites overlaid on a map of global land cover types. Source: AmeriFlux.

Highlight Agency: 
Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, National Aeronautics & Space Administration, National Science Foundation
Source Report: 
Our Changing Planet: The U.S. Global Change Research Program for Fiscal Years 2018-2019

Other Highlights

National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network (NCSMMN)

Posted
Mar 28, 2023

Assessing changes in global terrestrial live biomass over the 21st century

Posted
Mar 29, 2023

Tracking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment – Air Quality

Posted
Mar 24, 2023
GlobalChange.gov is made possible
by our participating agencies
  • USDA
  • DOC
  • DOD
  • DOE
  • HHS
  • DHS
  • DOI
  • DOS
  • DOT
  • EPA
  • NASA
  • NSF
  • SI
  • USAID

Get Our Newsletter

Get Social

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • RSS
  • Contact Us
U.S. Global Change Research Program
1800 G Street, NW, Suite 9100
Washington, D.C. 20006 USA

Tel: +1 202 223 6262
Fax: +1 202 223 3065
Privacy Policy