FLUXNET is a global network of micrometeorological flux measurement sites that measure the exchanges of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and energy between the biosphere and atmosphere. At present over 140 sites are operating on a long-term and continuous basis. Vegetation under study includes temperate conifer and broadleaved (deciduous and evergreen) forests, tropical and boreal forests, crops, grasslands, chaparral, wetlands, and tundra. Sites exist on five continents and their latitudinal distribution ranges from 70°N to 30°S. FLUXNET has several primary functions. First, it provides infrastructure for compiling, archiving, and distributing carbon, water, and energy flux measurement, and meteorological, plant, and soil data to the science community. (Data and site information are available online at the FLUXNET Web site, http://www-eosdis.ornl.gov/FLUXNET/.) Second, the project supports calibration and flux intercomparison activities. This activity ensures that data from the regional networks are intercomparable. And third, FLUXNET supports the synthesis, discussion, and communication of ideas and data by supporting project scientists, workshops, and visiting scientists. The overarching goal is to provide information for validating computations of net primary productivity, evaporation, and energy absorption that are being generated by sensors mounted on the NASA Terra satellite. Data being compiled by FLUXNET are being used to quantify and compare magnitudes and dynamics of annual ecosystem carbon and water balances, to quantify the response of stand-scale carbon dioxide and water vapor flux densities to controlling biotic and abiotic factors, and to validate a hierarchy of soil-plant-atmosphere trace gas exchange models. Findings so far include 1) net C0 2 exchange of temperate broadleaved forests increases by about 5.7 g C m~2 day-1 for each additional day that the growing season is extended; 2) the sensitivity of net ecosystem C0 2 exchange to sunlight doubles if the sky is cloudy rather than clear; 3) the spectrum of C0 2 flux density exhibits peaks at timescales of days, weeks, and years, and a spectral gap exists at the month timescale; 4) the optimal temperature of net C0 2 exchange varies with mean summer temperature; and 5) stand age affects carbon dioxide and water vapor flux densities.

Carbon exchange between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere is one of the key processes that need to be assessed in the context of the Kyoto Protocol. Several studies suggest that the terrestrial biosphere is gaining carbon, but these estimates are obtained primarily by indirect methods, and the factors that control terrestrial carbon exchange, its magnitude and primary locations, are under debate. Here we present data of net ecosystem carbon exchange, collected between 1996 and 1998 from 15 European forests, which confirm that many European forest ecosystems act as carbon sinks. The annual carbon balances range from an uptake of 6.6 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year to a release of nearly 1 t C ha(-1) yr(-1), with a large variability between forests. The data show a significant increase of carbon uptake with decreasing latitude, whereas the gross primary production seems to be largely independent of latitude. Our observations indicate that, in general, ecosystem respiration determines net ecosystem carbon exchange. Also, for an accurate assessment of the carbon balance in a particular forest ecosystem, remote sensing of the normalized difference vegetation index or estimates based on forest inventories may not be sufficient.

Terrestrial ecosystems sequester 2.1 Pg of atmospheric carbon annually. A large amount of the terrestrial sink is realized by forests. However, considerable uncertainties remain regarding the fate of this carbon over both short and long timescales. Relevant data to address these uncertainties are being collected at many sites around the world, but syntheses of these data are still sparse. To facilitate future synthesis activities, we have assembled a comprehensive global database for forest ecosystems, which includes carbon budget variables (fluxes and stocks), ecosystem traits (e.g. leaf area index, age), as well as ancillary site information such as management regime, climate, and soil characteristics. This publicly available database can be used to quantify global, regional or biome-specific carbon budgets; to re-examine established relationships; to test emerging hypotheses about ecosystem functioning [e.g. a constant net ecosystem production (NEP) to gross primary production (GPP) ratio]; and as benchmarks for model evaluations. In this paper, we present the first analysis of this database. We discuss the climatic influences on GPP, net primary production (NPP) and NEP and present the CO 2 balances for boreal, temperate, and tropical forest biomes based on micrometeorological, ecophysiological, and biometric flux and inventory estimates. Globally, GPP of forests benefited from higher temperatures and precipitation whereas NPP saturated above either a threshold of 1500 mm precipitation or a mean annual temperature of 10 1C. The global pattern in NEP was insensitive to climate and is hypothesized to be mainly determined by nonclimatic conditions such as successional stage, management, site history, and site disturbance. In all biomes, closing the CO 2 balance required the introduction of substantial biome-specific closure terms. Nonclosure was taken as an indication that respiratory processes, advection, and non-CO 2 carbon fluxes are not presently being adequately accounted for. Nomenclauture:DOC 5 dissolved organic carbon; fNPP 5 foliage component of NPP; GPP 5 gross primary production (GPP40 denotes photosynthetic uptake); mNPP 5 missing component of NPP;NBP 5 net biome production (NBP40 denotes biome uptake); NECB 5 net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB40 denotes ecosystem uptake); NEE 5 net ecosystem exchange (NEE40 denotes ecosystem uptake); NEP 5 net ecosystem production (NEP40 denotes ecosystem uptake); NPP 5 net primary production (NPP40 denotes ecosystem uptake); R a 5 autotrophic respiration (R a 40 denotes respiratory losses); R e 5 ecosystem respiration (R e 40 denotes respiratory losses); R h 5 heterotrophic respiration (R h 40 denotes respiratory losses); rNPP 5 root component of NPP;R s 5 soil respiration (R s 40 denotes respiratory losses); VOC 5 volatile organic compounds; wNPP 5 wood component of NPP

The European CARBOEUROPE/FLUXNET monitoring sites, spatial remote sensing observations via the EOS-MODIS sensor and ecosystem modelling provide independent and complementary views on the effect of the 2003 heatwave on the European biosphere's productivity and carbon balance. In our analysis, these data streams consistently demonstrate a strong negative anomaly of the primary productivity during the summer of 2003. FLUXNET eddy-covariance data indicate that the drop in productivity was not primarily caused by high temperatures ('heat stress') but rather by limitation of water (drought stress) and that, contrary to the classical expectation about a heat wave, not only gross primary productivity but also ecosystem respiration declined by up to more than to 80 gC m(-2) month(-1). Anomalies of carbon and water fluxes were strongly correlated. While there are large between-site differences in water-use efficiency (WUE, 1-6 kg C kg(-1) H₂O) here defined as gross carbon uptake divided by evapotranspiration (WUE=GPP/ET), the year-to-year changes in WUE were small (< 1 g kg(-1)) and quite similar for most sites (i.e. WUE decreased during the year of the heatwave). Remote sensing data from MODIS and AVHRR both indicate a strong negative anomaly of the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation in summer 2003, at more than five standard deviations of the previous years. The spatial differentiation of this anomaly follows climatic and land-use patterns: Largest anomalies occur in the centre of the meteorological anomaly (central Western Europe) and in areas dominated by crops or grassland. A preliminary model intercomparison along a gradient from data-oriented models to process-oriented models indicates that all approaches are similarly describing the spatial pattern of ecosystem sensitivity to the climatic 2003 event with major exceptions in the Alps and parts of Eastern Europe, but differed with respect to their interannual variability. [References: 46

Abstract. Anemometer and CO 2 concentration data from temporary campaigns performed at six CARBOEUROFLUX forest sites were used to estimate the importance of non-turbulent fluxes in nighttime conditions. While storage was observed to be significant only during periods of both low turbulence and low advection, the advective fluxes strongly influence the nocturnal CO 2 balance, with the exception of almost flat and highly homogeneous sites. On the basis of the main factors determining the onset of advective fluxes, the 'advection velocity', which takes net radiation and local topography into account, was introduced as a criterion to characterise the conditions of storage enrichment/depletion. Comparative analyses of the six sites showed several common features of the advective fluxes but also some substantial differences. In particular, all sites where advection occurs show the onset of a boundary layer characterised by a downslope flow, negative vertical velocities and negative vertical CO 2 concentration gradients during nighttime. As a consequence, vertical advection was observed to be positive at all sites, which corresponds to a removal of CO 2 from the ecosystem. The main differences between sites are the distance from the ridge, which influences the boundarylayer depth, and the sign of the mean horizontal CO 2 concentration gradients, which is probably determined by the source/sink distribution. As a consequence, both positive and negative horizontal advective fluxes (corresponding respectively to CO 2 removal from the ecosystem and to CO 2 supply to the ecosystem) were observed. Conclusive results on the importance of non-turbulent components in the mass balance require, however, further experimental investigations at sites with different topographies, slopes, different land covers, which would allow a more comprehensive analysis of the processes underlying the occurrence of advective fluxes. The quantification of these processes would help to better quantify nocturnal CO 2 exchange rates.