Carbon Research with ARM Data

One of the challenges in carbon cycle

carbon cycle

The movement and exchange of carbon through living organisms, the ocean, the atmosphere, rocks and minerals, and other parts of the Earth.

Source: a student's guide to Global Climate Change Source

research is the vast range of scales, from plant to global atmosphere, which must be bridged by measurements and models. A second major challenge is understanding the strong coupling among the fluxes

flux

The amount of some type of particle or energy crossing a unit area per unit time.

Source: NRC Library Source

of carbon, water and energy, and how these link to land use and climate. Spanning the broad range of scales and land uses requires integrating ecosystem

ecosystem

A natural community of plants, animals, and other living organisms and the physical environment in which they live and interact.

Source: A student's guide to Global Climate Change Source

processes over heterogeneous surfaces and coupling them with hydrological and meteorological processes. The ARM/LBNL Carbon project aims to study three important aspects of the carbon cycle: fluxes, concentrations (stocks), and processes that control fluxes and stocks.