Greenhouse Gas Concentration and Flux Measurement Facilities
Penn State faculty (S. Richardson, N. Miles, T. Lauvaux and K. Davis) maintain a calibration lab and field equipment capable of measuring concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane with very high accuracy and precision, and have deployed measurement systems for multiple field campaigns including the NACP Midcontinent Intensive, the Indianapolis Flux Experiment, the Marcellus shale gas study, the Gulf Coast intensive and ACT-America. We routinely contribute our observations to NOAA Global Monitoring Division's collection of well-calibrated greenhouse gas measurements, and participate in NOAA round-robin comparisons of lab calibration standards for greenhouse gas measurements. We also maintain and deploy eddy covariance flux measurements which quantify ecosystem-atmosphere fluxes of greenhouse gases, water vapor, sensible heat and momentum, and have deployed these systems over forests, cities and agricultural sites.