Meteorological data from the Discovery Tree at the Andrews Experimental Forest, 2015 to present

The upper-canopy of forests is known to experience a very different leaf wetness than the rest of the forest: it is often simultaneously brighter, hotter, windier, and drier. The upper canopy also contains most of the leaf area, and because it absorbs most of the solar radiation, it accounts for the great majority of carbon and water exchanges in most forests. Critically, this is also the zone where most climate variations and stress likely manifest. The upper canopy is also the region of the forest that is sampled by satellite imagery. Intensive canopy microclimate monitoring provides connections to satellite-based imagery at varying temporal and spatial scales in order to scale across the Andrews landscape and improves our understanding of forest function and its response to climate change. A 50 meter old growth tree, called the Discovery Tree, was instrumented with various sensors. A thermal infrared camera was installed in March 2014, which collects surface temperatures of the old-growth forest and the adjacent secondary-growth forest. Since then, the scope of information being acquired in real-time has increased to include temperature, leaf wetness, relative humidity, soil temperature, soil moisture, wind direction and speed. This suite of data serves as a glimpse into the canopy and soil processes we are unaware of when our feet are planted firmly on the ground. These measurements complement and leverage ongoing, long-term climate measurements collected in the sub-canopy and at the climate stations located across the Andrews forest, and potentially link with Lidar data on canopy structure and planned soil moisture measurements. Canopy thermal imaging and microclimate measurements have been established for ecophysiological applications such as monitoring the response of forest tree canopies to climate variations, including heat and drought stress.