Leveraging research infrastructure co-location to evaluate constraints on terrestrial carbon cycling in northern European forests
Martyn N. Futter, Thomas Dirnböck, Martin Forsius, Jaana Bäck, Nathalie Cools, Eugenio Díaz‐Pinés, Jan Dick, Veronika Gaube, Lauren Gillespie, Lars Högbom, Hjalmar Laudon, Michael Mirtl, Νikolaos P. Nikolaidis, Christian Poppe Terán, Ute Skiba, Harry Vereecken, Holger Villwock, James Weldon, Christoph Wohner, Syed Ashraful Alam
Abstract
Integrated long-term, in-situ observations are needed to document ongoing environmental change, to "ground-truth" remote sensing and model outputs and to predict future Earth system behaviour. The scientific and societal value of in-situ observations increases with site representativeness, temporal duration, number of parameters measured and comparability within and across sites. Research Infrastructures (RIs) can support harmonised, cross-site data collection, curation and publication. Integrating RI networks through site co-location and standardised observation methods can help answers three questions about the terrestrial carbon sink: (i) What are present and future carbon sequestration rates in northern European forests? (ii) How are these rates controlled? (iii) Why do the observed patterns exist? Here, we present a conceptual model for RI co-location and highlight potential insights into the terrestrial carbon sink achievable when long-term in-situ Earth observation sites participate in multiple RI networks (e.g., ICOS and eLTER). Finally, we offer recommendations to promote RI co-location.