Welcome to ChEAS VIII

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Welcome to ChEAS VIII

• Logistics. Introductions. Reimbursement. Meals.
  Transport. Facilities we must take care.
  Agenda order of topics, field visit logistics.
• A brief history of the ChEAS
• Brief review of projects, sites, goals
• Meeting goals
• Special issues
• AmeriFlux evaluation/DoE TCP review/NIGEC
  restructuring
• New research projects
• ChEAS and the North American Carbon Program
  midcontinental intensive (NACP MCI)
• Long-term ChEAS?
• ChEAS special issue update
• ChEAS RCN update

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• ChEAS primer

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A brief history of the ChEAS

• Unknown date in pre-history, U. Wisconsin begins
  forestry research in the Chequamegon National
  Forest.
• 1990 or so, NOAA-CMDL starts instrumenting tall
  towers for trace gas measurements.
• December 1991, Davis and Bakwin start talking in
  Boulder, due to Michael Trolier and the Chemrawn
  VII meeting in Baltimore.
• 1994. NIGEC funds Bakwin and Davis for eddy flux
  measurements at WLEF. NOAA-funded CO2
  measurements start in 1994. Flux measurements
  start in 1995. AmeriFlux takes shape 1996(?).

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A brief history of ChEAS

• 1997. Bolstad, Davis, Denning, Gower, Gutschick,
  and Mackay (others?) all begin new projects in
  the Chequamegon region, all focused to some
  extent around the WLEF flux and mixing ratio
  measurements. Gower organizes a winter 1998
  meeting at Kemp. ChEAS is born. Bakwin creates
  the acronym at this meeting.
• Past ChEAS meetings
• Kemp, February 1998.
• St. Paul, May 1999.
• St. Paul, June 2000.
• Madison, June, 2001
• Kemp, June 2002.
• Kemp, June 2003.
• St. Paul, June 2004.
• ChEAS RCN funded in early 2002.

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The Chequamegon Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study
(ChEAS) Research Collaboration Network (RCN)

• Funded by the NSFs Biological Sciences
  Directorate.
• 5 year project, started January 2002.
• Proposal written by Eileen Carey and Bruce Cook.
  Initiated at the suggestion of Jim Ehleringer,
  U.Utah, at the 4th ChEAS meeting, Madison, WI,
  June, 2001.

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ChEAS RCN, Objectives

• Education Provide multidisciplinary training and
  research opportunities to new scientists working
  across traditional boundaries in the fields of
  ecology, hydrology and atmospheric science.
• Research Promote the development of integrative
  research projects building upon the ChEAS
  infrastructure, especially those focusing on
  bridging the gap between leaf- and canopy-scale
  flux measurements and the global CO2 flask
  sampling network and understanding the causes of
  seasonal to interannual variability in
  forest-atmosphere exchanges.
• Promote data sharing.
• Guide the future direction of ChEAS research.

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ChEAS RCN, structure and activities, proposed

• Steering group about 20 core participants (
  research group leaders with research interests
  matching the objectives of the RCN). Open to new
  members.
• Workshops. 2002, 2004, 2006. Funds to bring in
  guest scientists and participating students and
  scientists. 2 week duration.
• ChEAS meetings, each year. 1-2 days.
• Laboratory exchanges. Up to 5 visits/year,
  duration of 2 weeks to a few months.

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ChEAS research goals

• Quantify regional fluxes
• Extrapolate (upscale) plot- and stand-level flux
  tower data across space to estimate regionally
  aggregated fluxes, and reconcile these estimates
  with inversion-derived top-down flux estimates.
  
• Determine the processes that govern regional
  fluxes
• Using plot, stand, and atmospheric inversion flux
  measurements, determine the processes that govern
  spatial variability in gross fluxes (gross
  ecosystem productivity, ecosystem respiration)
  and net fluxes (NEE) in the ChEAS region.
• Using plot, stand and atmospheric inversion flux
  measurements, determine the processes that govern
  temporal variability of gross and net fluxes
  across the region from diurnal to interannual
  timescales.

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Projects, sites

• About 5-10 projects partly or wholly focused in
  the region have been ongoing since 1997.
• NOAA, NIGEC, DoE TCP, NSF DEB, USDA and NSF/NCAR
  have provided funds.
• Research has often, but not always, focused
  around flux towers. 7 long term and 2?/5?
  portable systems are currently operating.
• http//cheas.psu.edu has lots of information.
  Project descriptions are very out of date.

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Study sites within the ChEAS region
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ChEAS long-term flux towers
Tower PIs Vegetation Type Height of fluxes Funding Start date
WLEF Bakwin, Bolstad, Davis Mixed up/wet, decid/conif 30, 122 and 396m DoE TCP. Questionable 2005-2006. 1995
Willow Creek Bolstad, Davis Mature upland decid 30m NASA 1999
Lost Creek Bolstad, Davis Deciduous wetland 10m NIGEC Midwest 2000
Sylvania Bolstad, Davis Old growth upland 40m DoE TCP 2001
Bayfield A Chen Mature upland decid 30m NSF Ecosystems 2002
Bayfield B Chen Mature red pine 30m NSF Ecosystems 2002
UMBS Curtis, Schmid Old aspen 40m? NIGEC Midwest 1997?
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• Publications
• See http//cheas.psu.edu, link to publications
• Searchable database.

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• Meeting goals

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Goals of all ChEAS meetings

• Identify scientific opportunities and needs.
• Educate ourselves, especially grad students,
  about these opportunities and needs.
• Identify/introduce new collaborators who can
  enhance the ChEAS.
• Create action plans.
• See field sites/conduct experiments

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Topics for ChEAS VIII (2005)

• Hypotheses, methods and results to date
• ChEAS and the NACP MCI
• Long-term plans for ChEAS

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Charge to attendees

• Report on your own hypotheses, methods, results
  to date. Synthesize.
• Speak up when you have something relevant to
  contribute to the presenter. Papers, proposals,
  postdocs and coauthors are born here. Integrate
  across groups and disciplines. Report. Publish.
• Present or speak up when you see needs,
  contributions, opportunities, etc, relevant to
  the NACP intensive.
• Present or speak up when you see relevant to
  the long-term plans for the ChEAS. Wither the
  ChEAS? Formulate hypotheses, plan of action.

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• Special issues

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Special issues

• DoE TCP/AmeriFlux review/NIGEC restructuring
• Purpose of the ChEAS isnt clear to DoE TCP.
• NIGEC is disappearing, and its future interest in
  flux measurements in waning.
• All AmeriFlux sites are being evaluated by DoE
  TCP for potential long-term, facility-like
  support. Evaluation is based on
• Site instrumentation and maintenance personnel
• Site participation in synthesis activities
• Site database reporting, data breadth and
  quality, responsiveness to data managers
• Hargrove ecoregions analysis regarding ecological
  uniqueness. (Mixed forest)
• No consideration to date of clusters, publication
  history.
• Does a cluster like the ChEAS have benefit that
  is greater than the sum of its individual study
  sites? Can we clearly articulate this message to
  program managers?
• New research projects
• NASA carbon upscaling project. Bolstad, Davis,
  Kolka, Heinsch and Kubiske. Can we successfully
  construct multi-tier upscaling of regional carbon
  fluxes?
• The NACP MCI now includes the ChEAS.
• All of you are NACP regional intensive
  investigators.
• This will/should bring new investigators to the
  ChEAS
• Ecosystem flux models Invite new investigators
  to join in the upscaling experiment apply their
  models to our database.
• Remote sensing Invite help with land surface
  classifications that work for carbon upscaling
• Inversions Invite other groups to participate
  in a regional inversion intercomparison.
• Meetings Winter PIs workshop. Merge with RCN
  regional flux methods grad/pdoc workshop? Fall
  AGU session on the NACP MCI likely.

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NACP MCI Objectives

• Provide top-down and bottom-up flux estimates
  for MC Intensive study region
• Evaluate discrepancies between approaches and
  diagnose problems
• Incrementally improve estimates for both
  approaches through comparisons and mutual
  learning
• Work towards an optimization of field and
  atmospheric sampling schemes
• Provide mechanistic explanations for net flux
  patterns across seasonal to annual time spans
• Provide guidance to future Intensives

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NACP MCI Task Force Members

• Stephen Ogle (co-coord.) ecosystem modeling
• Ken Davis (co-coord.) tower measurements/upscali
  ng
• Bob Cook Data management support for Intensive
• Shashi Verma EC Flux Towers in agricultural
  systems
• Arlyn Andrews Long Term Atmospheric Monitoring
  (Tall Towers)
• Kevin Gurney Atmospheric inversions and fossil
  fuel emissions
• Steve Wofsy Aircraft measurements
• Tris West ecosystem modeling
• Tim Parkin EC Flux Towers in agricultural
  systems
• Jeff Morisette Remote Sensing

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Spatial Domain Tall Tower Footprints
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Structure - Nested spatial scales

• Whole mid-continental region
• Annual to daily focus, high spatial resolution.
  Independent top-down and bottom-up approaches.
• Sub-regional intensive domains
• Evaluate bottom-up approaches within coherent
  MLRAs/ecoregions. Seasonal to daily focus, very
  high spatial resolution. Independent top-down
  fluxes.
• E.g. Bondville, Mead-NB, SMEX05/Iowa-USDA,
  ARM-CART
• Stand-level studies
• Flux towers, tier 3 and tier 2 plots, etc.
  Used to calibrate ecosystem models for
  up-scaling.
• Annual to daily focus. Single points in space.

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Special issues (continued)

• Develop a science plan for the ChEAS in the
  long-term. What is the logic of a cluster of
  sites?
• Preliminary draft written, with major results to
  date.
• Needs
• Develop and refine this science plan.
• Communicate it to program managers. Secure
  support. Each measurement or model must support
  a hypothesis.
• Upcoming RFPs that might benefit the ChEAS
• NSF LTREB call July deadline
• NASA NACP call (?)
• DoE TCP spring 2006
• Others?

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Proposed ChEAS (carbon) hypotheses

1. Simultaneous application of multiple top-down
   (atmospheric inversion) and bottom-up (ecological
   modeling with flux tower, remote sensing, forest
   inventory and other biophysical inputs) methods
   will converge upon net CO2 fluxes for the region
   that are consistent to within 0.2 gC m-2 d-1 on
   both seasonal and annual time scales.
2. Joint measurements of CO2 fluxes and mixing
   ratios, when of sufficient precision, are
   complementary.
3. Climate variability drives interannual
   variability of gross and net carbon fluxes at any
   single site within the ChEAS region. The
   coherence of climate within the study area causes
   interannual variability to be coherent across
   multiple sites in the region. Thus, a single
   flux tower can be used to capture a large
   fraction of the interannual variability for the
   entire region.
4. Stand age, soil moisture status and species
   composition govern spatial variability in carbon
   fluxes across sites within the ChEAS region.
   Thus, characterization of the above ecosystem
   properties will enable ecosystem models to
   accurately estimate regional fluxes using a
   combination of flux tower data, forest inventory
   data, and vegetation cover maps as inputs.
5. We can determine the appropriate levels of map
   detail and ecosystem model complexity that are
   necessary to match these upscaled fluxes to
   regional-scale inversion results and tall tower
   fluxes. These upscaling methods will be
   exportable to other forested regions.
6. The simultaneous application of plot-level,
   stand-level and regional flux measurements will
   reveal the dominant processes governing regional
   fluxes and the temporal variability of those
   fluxes. This will enable models to predict the
   responses of the regional carbon budget to future
   climate and land-use change.

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ChEAS special issue

• 13 papers being reviewed.
• Results document created for the AmeriFlux review
  is the basis for a summary paper for the special
  issue. Needs your contributions. What answers
  have we found, what puzzles remain? Discuss this
  today and tomorrow.
• ChEAS data base development require that all
  published data are reported to Mercury?

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ChEAS RCN issues

• Data-base development
• Internet conferencing tools
• Next workshop
• Next meeting
• Lab-to-lab travel requests
• Summer help will work on database development,
  internet conferencing tech, regional flux
  workshop planning.

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ChEAS RCN budget

• Meetings substantially under budget.
• Shorter duration than planned
• Lower travel costs than planned
• Participation about as planned
• Lab exchanges somewhat under budget
• Fewer requests than planned
• Shorter duration than planned
• Similar costs to planning

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Major ChEAS results

• Analyses of WLEF multi-year flux record
• Comparisons across ChEAS towers for one year
• Convergence of regional upscaling, and top-down
  carbon flux estimates for the growing season
• (Cluster-wide interannual variability)
• (Ecosystem, and coupled atmosphere-ecosystem CO2
  model evaluation)
• (Regional inversion flux estimates)