AmeriFlux Tech Team activities during COVID-19

Due to COVID-19, the entire AmeriFlux Management Project (AMP) has been working from home since March 16 following shelter-in-place orders from public health authorities in the San Francisco Bay Area. For many in the AmeriFlux community, this change is seamless; data submissions, data QA/QC, and data downloads all continue uninterrupted. The AmeriFlux Data team can be contacted at ameriflux-support@lbl.gov. 

Map of AmeriFlux Tech Team site visits 2016-2019

For the AmeriFlux Tech Team (ameriflux-tech@lbl.gov), some activities and services have been impacted. Until we return to our labs and offices, we are unable to provide loaner instruments or calibration gases. Our 2020 site visit planning is on hold for now. We are actively working on a new revised site visit approach which began prior to the pandemic but was expedited by recent circumstances. Since the inception of the AmeriFlux network, a roving set of instruments has been used to evaluate and benchmark sites across the network [read more about the current site visit program. Today, as the network has grown past 450 registered sites, we acknowledge that visiting 8-10 sites per year is not a sustainable way to evaluate and help the entire network. We are considering a number of ways to scale the site visit program and have held numerous discussions with the network. The new site visit 2.0 approach will be conducted remotely without deploying a portable eddy covariance system (PECS). A comprehensive data processing evaluation will be performed to identify issues or opportunities to improve flux calculations from high-frequency observations. Additionally, we will use the opportunity to interact with AmeriFlux site teams to discuss site best practices and collect critical metadata. We hope to share more information with the community once we pilot this new site visit process. Questions for the Tech Team can be sent to ameriflux-tech@lbl.gov. 

Lastly, the AmeriFlux team is discussing ideas for the annual meeting and the Data/Tech workshop. Particularly for the Data/Tech workshop, we are considering a remote workshop approach or webinar series to reach more site teams and grow participation. Look forward to future announcements.