In the context of the ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System) Reseach Infrastructure, the equivalent of the American NEON in Europe, the 10 year-old Fontainebleau-Barbeau (FR-Fon site) forest station has been upgraded to comply with the ICOS Class 1 mandatory requirements. These improvements consisted in the installation of new ICOS standardized sensors and instruments as well as the multiplication of sensor replicates, to improve the spatial representativity of measurements within the footprint. This work was made concurrently with a complete overhaul of the power supply and the communication strategy of the station, in order to (1) have a minimum impact of power failures (and so data loss) and (2) insure the near-real time transmission of the data to the lab (70 km away from the site) and to the ICOS thematic center in charge of the centralized flux calculations (www.europe-fluxdata.eu/icos/home).
Since the end of 2013, the FR-Fon forest station has a dedicated web site that presents the research activities that are conducted on the station, the people involved, a press page and a unique webpage that displays the near real-time data of the station. To know more, visit www.barbeau.u-psud.fr
Texts, photos & figures are provided by Daniel Berveiller, Eric Dufrêne and Nicolas Delpierre