FluxnetLSM R package (v1.0): a community tool for processing FLUXNET data for use in land surface modelling

Anna M. Ukkola*, Ned Haughton, Martin G. De Kauwe, Gab Abramowitz, Andy J. Pitman

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    14 Citations (Scopus)
    58 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Flux towers measure ecosystem-scale surface-atmosphere exchanges of energy, carbon dioxide and water vapour. The network of flux towers now encompasses ∼900 sites, spread across every continent. Consequently, these data have become an essential benchmarking tool for land surface models (LSMs). However, these data as released are not immediately usable for driving, evaluating and benchmarking LSMs. Flux tower data must first be transformed into a LSM-readable file format, a process which involves changing units, screening missing data and varying degrees of additional gap-filling. All of this often leads to an under-utilisation of these data in model benchmarking. To resolve some of these issues, and to help make flux tower measurements more widely used, we present a reproducible, open-source R package that transforms the FLUXNET2015 and La Thuile data releases into community standard NetCDF files that are directly usable by LSMs. We note that these data would also be useful for any other user or community seeking to independently quality control, gap-fill or use the FLUXNET data.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)3379-3390
    Number of pages12
    JournalGeoscientific Model Development
    Volume10
    Issue number9
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 12 Sept 2017

    Bibliographical note

    Copyright the Author(s) 2017. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

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