Integrating Fine-Scale Surface Flux Heterogeneity into Observations and Land Surface Models

The living biosphere interacts with atmospheric processes at a multitude of scales. Understanding these processes requires integration of multiple observations for comparison to theories embedded in atmospheric models. But, all observations mismatch the scale of all models. Therefore, spatial and temporal scaling of surface fluxes is fundamental to how we evaluate theories on what happens within the sub-grid of atmospheric models and how those feed back onto larger scale dynamics. Benchmarking a model grid cell with an individual observation requires proper identification of uncertainty and bias (such as energy imbalance for eddy covariance). This presentation reviews recent advances in observational scaling of measurements such as eddy covariance flux towers and advances in modeling of sub-grid processes in land surface, ecosystem, weather, and climate models. In particular, we introduce the Chequamegon Heterogeneous Ecosystem Energy-balance Study Enabled by a High-density Extensive Array of Detectors (CHEESEHEAD19), an upcoming NSF field experiment designed to specifically address this challenge.