Specifications

TEAM Climate Monitoring Protocol 3.0
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5. Integrated Environmental Assessment: Anticipate the use of the data in the
development of environmental assessments such as climate change and its effects on
other systems.
6. Historical Significance: Strive to maintain climate observing systems that have been
operating for long time frames (decades, century) and maintain high quality data.
7. Complementary Data: Give higher priority to the deployment of climate observing
systems in data-poor, unrepresented areas.
8. Climate Requirements: Provide adequate monitoring technical requirements at the
outset of network implementation. This includes stated high accuracy of instrumentation
requirements and small bias to detect trends and other phenomena depending on the
nature of the network.
9. Continuity of Purpose: Maintain stable and long-term commitment to these observing
systems to maximize data utility.
10. Data and Metadata Access: Develop data management systems that facilitate access,
use, and interpretation of data and data products by users. Freedom of access, low cost
mechanisms that facilitate use and quality control should be an integral part of data
management.
Consistent with these guiding principles, The Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring
Network (TEAM) has compiled a Climate Monitoring Protocol to address the lack of high-
quality, long-term climatological data coming from tropical forests. TEAM’s mission is to
understand the effects of global drivers of change (climate, land use change) on biodiversity and
ecosystem services by collecting standardized data throughout a network of tropical forest sites
at several spatial and temporal scales (Andelman & Willig 2004, Andelman, et al. in prep). Thus,
the implementation of a high quality climate monitoring protocol across a large number of
tropical sites is necessary to answer the global questions underlying the design of the network.
By unifying the equipment used, siting requirements for the climate station, and sensor
calibration and maintenance schedules across sites, it is possible to detect climate trends within a
site, compare data between sites, and make the data a truly global resource for the scientific and
conservation communities. Some the questions that could be answered with a long-term multi-
site tropical forest climate station network are:
1. Are dry seasons getting longer or more intense in tropical forests? Is this due to lower
rainfall, higher incoming solar radiation, or a combination of both?
2. How is the temporal pattern of rainfall changing with climate change? Is rainfall
becoming more variable and at what scale (e.g. day, month, year)?
3. How is temperature changing in tropical forests? Are these changes more evident in
periods of low rainfall and higher solar radiation?
This protocol has gone through the highest standards of scientific review to produce a
standardized, detailed and affordable protocol that can be implemented by anyone throughout the
tropics.