It’s not often that you get to see a total solar eclipse from your own back yard. It’s even rarer when your eddy covariance flux site, 300 miles away, is also in the path of totality. That’s just the situation we found ourselves in. On August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse crossed our research site in the Nebraska SandHills (US-SdH). Being a long-time amateur astronomer, it presented an opportunity that we just couldn’t miss.

To capture the spring release of greenhouse gasses from bog lakes, a team of intrepid UW-Madison researchers installed eddy covariance buoys on two frozen bog lakes in northern Wisconsin in March. These buoys provided under the loaner instrument program (LI-7700) by the AmeriFlux Management Project for the AmeriFlux Year of Methane are continually measuring carbon dioxide and methane fluxes and will continue doing so as ice melts and as the buoys settle into their summer home on the open water.