GeoBasis programme

The GeoBasis monitoring programme contributes to the GEM strategy theme on Ecosystem feedbacks which deals with budgets of energy balance (radiation) and carbon balance (greenhouse gas fluxes), how these abiotic parameters are affected by ecosystem dynamics including biota and their interactions with climate. These feedbacks alter both land and sea ecosystems, and cause reinforcing or in some cases a dampening of the ongoing changes in climate.

The GeoBasis programme provides a significant contributions in representing the northernmost stations in regionally distributed networks of measurements such as the Integrated Carbon Observing System (ICOS).

Furthermore, the GeoBasis programme is directly involved in several international networks and research projects (e.g. the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) and MicroClimate Database (MDB)).

The GeoBasis programme is divided into a number of sub-groups, including:

• Snow properties; including spatial and temporal variation in snow cover, depth and density.
• Soil properties; spatially distributed monitoring of key soil parameters such as temperature, moisture, chemistry and seasonal progression of active layer depth.
• Flux monitoring; plot and landscape scale flux monitoring of CO₂, CH₄, H₂O and energy in wet and dry ecosystems.
• Hydrology; monitoring of seasonal variation in river water discharge, chemistry and suspended sediment.
• Geomorphology; monitoring of shorelines, coastal cliff foots and cross-shore river profiles.
• Meteorology; monitoring of essential variables across various surface types and elevations, in connection with a specific focus on some of the above mentioned component.