April Collaboration in Focus: Greenhouse gas fluxes in five SITES lakes measured during the open water season

04 April 2024

SITES Thematic programs are one form of collaboration, connecting individual stations in order to support and enhance research on both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems as well as offering open data from long-term monitoring and experimental installations. 

Through the SITES Water Thematic Program, floating chambers are used for determining greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, carbon dioxide and methane, from SITES lakes, providing aquatic GHG fluxes across space and time. The program is run on five SITES lakes (Almbergasjön, Erken, Erssjön, Feresjön, Stortjärn) during the open water season, in which GHF fluxes are measured every two weeks from three transects on the lake. Now that spring is on its way and the ice on lakes across Sweden is beginning to melt, the GHG program is gearing up to start again this year! 

A photo of a floating dock extending along a strip of water winding between vegetation on the shore of a lake. Extending off the dock are silver floating chambers used to capture greenhouse gas emissions from the lake.

Photo: Roberto Lo Monaco

The SITES 2024 Calendar theme is “SITES Collaborations”. SITES aims to promote excellent ecosystem research and high-quality data that support this research. This includes collaborations that increase the number of projects that utilize multiple SITES stations and connect between aquatic and terrestrial processes. Further, SITES aims to strengthen the collaborations with relevant research infrastructures and networks across Sweden and internationally, including data infrastructures and services. Each month during 2024, follow along as we highlight a unique SITES collaboration.