Committee lead: Juergen Knauer ([email protected])
Committee members: Mirco Migliavacca, Alison Bennett, Sönke Zaehle, Tarek El-Madany
Charter:
The purpose of the Extended Data Processing and Ecosystem Functional Properties Committee is to facilitate access to extended data processing products and to promote scientific activities around ecosystem functioning, ecohydrological processes, and the use of remotely sensed observations of vegetation structure and plant traits. The working group will work together with the Data Integration Committee, Postprocessing Committee, and potentially other committees. We propose to focus on three main activities:
Activity 1: This activity will identify possible pathways for integrating extended flux processing variables (e.g. surface conductance, aerodynamic conductance, surface temperature) and ecosystem functional properties (e.g. water-use efficiency, canopy-atmosphere decoupling, basal ecosystem respiration) into the eddy covariance postprocessing pipeline. Work will focus on establishing best practices for deriving ecosystem functional properties across sites and networks that may be suitable for integration into a harmonized processing workflow such as ONEFlux and REddyProc.
Activity 2: Considering the high sensitivity of many of the ecosystem properties and metrics to an unclosed energy balance, this activity will focus on how to best address uncertainties arising from the ‘missing energy’ (LE + H < Rn-G) problem prevalent at many sites. In collaboration with the Postprocessing Committee, this activity will review the suitability of existing energy balance correction approaches in the context of extended flux postprocessing and the characterization of the associated uncertainties.
Activity 3: The aim of this activity is to design case studies that investigate climatic, structural, and phenological controls on ecosystem functional properties and their temporal as well as within- and across-site variability. Such case studies could build on the use of paired sites, ecosystem experiments, disturbance events, or climatic gradients. This group will leverage the potential of ancillary data sources such as remote sensing products, phenocams, or flux footprint models and is expected to closely collaborate with the Data Integration Committee.
Expectation of participants:
Participants are expected to (co-) lead one of the suggested activities above or to be actively involved in the process. Virtual committee meetings will take place quarterly or may be organized when the need arises.