AmeriFlux World Cafe 2015: Summary

At the 2015 Ameriflux Principal Investigators Meeting in Washington DC, 35 people participated in a World Cafe session to brainstorm about the Next Big Ideas in climate research. Below are listed the primary themes that emerged from discussions.

Tables

Three rounds of discussion were held at each table. At the end, participants used dots to indicate favorable ideas. See images at the end for table notes, and dot voting.

Here are the themes that emerged:

Table A: Improve sensing, processing, analysis and communication
Table B: Use rich media to communicate about science; Advance the science
Table C: Use visualization to increase understanding and meaning
Table D: Make IT more user friendly
Table E: Automate fieldwork

Images:
Table Notes and Dot Voting

Table A

Theme: Improve sensing, processing, analysis and communication
Sensing and data:

Study weather via more sensors and drones
Monitor restoration
Use the cloud to store data

Processing and analysis

Data assimilation
Improve techniques to better understand photosynthesis, carbon budget
Adapting to change
Soil/atmosphere interactions

Communication (Make it meaningful):

Story telling
Operational/informative approach to carbon monitoring

Table B

Themes: Use rich media and narrative to communicate about science; advance the science

Rich media:

Make carbon sums accessible to public
Using visualization, sound and animation to see and think about our sites in new ways
Data at your fingertips/PECAN (http://pecanproject.github.io)
Advanced visualization
Breathing of biosphere
Story telling
PEcAn / Citizen Science

Advance the science:

Need new models to understand water fluxes
Use drones to measure canopy reflectance
Canopy analysis via drones
¹⁴C below ground
Sensors: Some don’t exist
Hyperspectral LIDAR
Stoichiometry
Sonar
New GPP measures, O₂
Better resolution. Near-scale carbon budget
Better computing / uniform BADM
New measurements to understand air drainage, canopy structure and biomass
Ecologist in a box
Soil data at different scales
Remote sensing of soil

Question: How can AmeriFlux benefit from high performance computing?

Table C

Theme: Use visualization to increase understanding and meaning

We need more Randy Olsons: Computer scientist / Artist / Scientist who can translate across disciplines

Dream team:

Soil scientist in a cloud
Computer scientist / Artist / Scientist who can translate across disciplines
Flux tower PIs
Economist
Actuary, Randy Olson (convince people it is important), tech wizard, CS/data manager/phenologist, modeler, soil scientist, physiologist, funding agent

Table D

Theme: Make IT more user friendly

Needs:

Data input tool that can read and interpret anything (CSV, images, text, time sequence, etc.)
IT that makes data automatically queryable
Data repository tool for better data sharing

Dream team: