New data products available, construction update, upcoming events and more
In this issue:
  1. Recent Highlights
  2. Construction progress
  3. Announcements
  4. From the Observatory Blog
  5. Recent publications
  6. Opportunities
Litterfall and Sunphotometer data now available

Users can now download litterfall and sun photometer data from the NEON data portal. Litterfall is collected throughout the growing season at terrestrial field sites as part of NEON’s observational sampling program. NEON also installs a CIMEL sunphotometer on flux towers throughout the network. Data are sent to AERONET for processing and derived data include NEON’s Spectral Sunphotometer - Calibrated Sky Radiances (NEON. DOM.SITE.DP1.00043) data product (generally produced within 24 hours of receipt of raw data), as well as many other data products such as aerosol optical depth (AOD) and total column water vapor. Simply go to the NEON data portal and use the search bar on the homepage.

In addition, significant work has been done under the hood of the data portal resulting in instant downloads and faster processing of data queries, so if you haven’t checked out the data portal recently, go back and give it a test drive.

2017 remote surveying flights right on track

NEON’s Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) team kicked off the 2017 flight season with a survey of San Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER), CA in late March. Field sites were also surveyed in Domain 11: Southern Plains, and the flight crew is currently surveying sites in Domain 8: Ozak’s Complex. Planning these flight campaigns requires careful analysis of annual trends of peak greenness and weather conditions as well regular testing and calibration of the remote sensing instrumentation. The flight teams will continue to chase peak greenness throughout the United States until late October.

Check out the full flight season schedule.
April Construction Progress
To complete the construction of a field site there are four milestones: 1) Civil construction in which the physical infrastructure of the site is completed 2) Sensor installation 3) Field sampling begins and continues on an annual basis and 4) Data are successfully collected from the site and made available via the data portal and/or the airborne data request form .
Dr. Michael SanClements elected Forest, Range & Wildland Soils Division Chair

The Soil Science Society of America recently elected our own Mike SanClements to chair the Forest, Range & Wildland Soils Division. His term began in January 2017. Mike is also the lead scientist for Atmosphere, Climate and Terrestrial Fluxes: the automated instrument systems used to collect atmospheric and soil data at NEON’s field sites.
Open seats still available for NEON’s 2017 Data Institute in remote sensing and reproducible workflows

We have a few more seats left for this year’s week-long course that will provide a unique opportunity for participants to gain hands-on experience working with open data using well-documented, reproducible methods. Participants will also gain important applied knowledge about using heterogeneous remote sensing data sources to answer spatio-temporal ecological questions. The Institute will take place in Boulder, CO from June 19-24, 2017.
Bayesian Modeling for Socio-Environmental Data Workshop deadline fast approaching

The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) will host a nine-day short course August 15 - 25, 2017 covering basic principles of using Bayesian models to gain insight from data. They are accepting applications through May 26 for this course.
Going to ESA 2017? Register now for our Working with Time Series in R using NEON Data Workshop

This workshop will be presented at the Ecological Society for America conference in August and registration is now open. In the workshop, participants will work with NEON scientists to learn how to import, manipulate, format and plot time series data stored in .csv format in R while working with NEON data. To participate, you must be a registered attendee of the conference and register for this workshop with your ESA registration. The early bird deadline to register for ESA 2017 is June 15.

The Observatory blog features updates and science stories to help you better understand NEON’s capabilities and how you can use NEON. Check out some of our recent stories:

Staff scientist Keith Krause recently published a paper on his research investigating different methods for processing waveform LiDAR data collected from environments with different topography and vegetation conditions: Gold – A novel deconvolution algorithm with optimization for waveform LiDAR processing.

In 2013, NEON scientists participated in an National Science Foundation (NSF) funded workshop called "Scaling Up" that also involved the Ecological Society of America.  Check out this recently published paper with the results of their work: Increasing phenological asynchrony between spring green-up and arrival of migratory birds

Are you using NEON data, methodologies or infrastructure for your research? We would love to feature your research, publications or your organization on our website. Please send us an email at neonscience@battelleecology.org.

We're hiring

Battelle is actively seeking an Observatory Director/Chief Scientist to serve as the top level scientific authority for the NEON program and is responsible for the advocacy of transformative research utilizing NEON. This position will lead the Observatory science program through close coordination with the ecological science community and ensure that the Observatory fulfills its scientific and educational mission. In addition, this position will also work to establish strong external activities with potential collaborators nationally and internationally. Learn more.

Explore all currently open positions for NEON here.