ATBIS

Our proposed campaign is highly relevant for ARM’s mission. The EcoSpec system is designed to collect land surface measurements in a non-intrusive or non-destructive manner using remote sensing techniques. Hyperspectral reflectance and additional optical and infrared measurements will be used to retrieve land surface observations associated with key atmosphere-biosphere interactions that are strongly coupled with carbon and water cycling and provide independent measurements of gross primary production, evapotranspiration, and ecosystem respiration that can be used to benchmark ESMs estimates. Thus, our proposed campaign, which establishes the capability for collecting land surface measurements that complement ARM’s existing atmospheric baseline measurements, is strongly aligned with ARM’s endeavor—contributing to the advancement of ESMs by linking the atmosphere and the land surface. If successful, the land surface measurements collected using our system would be valuable datasets for the climate change research community and other Earth science communities, with the potential of expanding the facility’s user base.