PELLSTON, Mich. — Looming above the canopy of trees stands one of the most iconic research pieces in the University of Michigan Biological Station catalog.
The AmeriFlux tower in northern Michigan provides one of the highest quality long-term datasets on forest carbon dynamics in the world.
Data from the AmeriFlux tower at UMBS is downloaded every day by scientists around the world to understand how ecosystems respond to climate change and improve the performance of models that predict climate change and interpret satellite-borne observations on the state of our ecosystem.
Dr. John Lenters, senior research specialist at UMBS, has climbed the tower nearly 10 times since he started working at the more than 10,000-acre research and teaching campus along Douglas Lake two years ago.
“Climbing a flux tower is essential for ensuring accurate and continuous collection of data about the greenhouse gas exchanges between vegetation and the atmosphere — everything from device calibration to maintenance,” Lenters said. “But before you can take that first step, you need to undergo comprehensive education on climbing, rescue and general safety practices.”
Lenters led a three-day tower safety training class for staff and students at UMBS June 9-11.
Over the course of the training, several UMBS staff and 10 students learned about tower climbing safety.
Monday was classroom work, Tuesday featured harnessing in and conducting rescue drills in Stockard Lakeside Lab’s boat well, and Wednesday marked the participants’ first time making the trek to the top of the tower, putting everything they learned into practice with oversight.
UMBS staff who went through the training include maintenance, facility operations and research personnel.
Students in the new “Observation and Modeling of Climate Change Biology” course also took the tower safety training class, including Jackie Scott.
“It was pretty helpful to do rescue training,” said Scott, a senior at Oakland University studying environmental science and dance. “I’m excited to be really high up. Hopefully we can just sit up there and enjoy the view for a while.”
During the first week of classes of the 2025 spring term, the class used a ladder to help build a much smaller but mobile flux tower along the Douglas Lake shoreline to measure atmospheric data and environmental conditions.
The class used data from their own machine as well as the AmeriFlux tower to do their modeling and coding.
Maxwell Iseler, a student in the “Observation and Modeling of Climate Change Biology” class, said climbing the AmeriFlux tower helped the class better understand the carbon data the tower collects.
“You can see at which points we arrive at the top of the tower because of the spikes in carbon,” said Iseler, a senior at the University of Michigan studying human origins and behavior (HOB). “What John showed us put a lot of what we were learning in class into perspective, both the uptake of carbon throughout the day and the release of water vapor by plants. It was so cool!”
"It was a great experience. As someone who has done some climbing in the past, to be more familiar with the equipment and safety procedures I felt more secure and better prepared,” said Jason Tallant, data manager and research specialist at UMBS. "Unfortunately, the wildfire smoke from Canada reduced the visibility and we could not see the Mackinac Bridge from the top. The view, even limited to a couple miles, was still brilliant."
AmeriFlux is a network of instrumented eddy covariance sites in North, South and Central America that measure ecosystem carbon dioxide, water and energy fluxes as well as other exchanges between the land surface and atmosphere.
UMBS is one of AmeriFlux’s Core Sites where ongoing observations are updated regularly for more than 25 years.
Scroll below to view more photos.
The U-M Biological Station — the largest of U-M's campuses — is one of the nation's largest and longest continuously operating field research stations.
Founded in 1909, the Biological Station supports long-term research and education. It is where students and scientists from across the globe live and work as a community to learn from the place.
The University of Michigan Biological Station serves as a gathering place to learn from the natural world, advance research and education, and inspire action. We leverage over a century of research and transformative experiences to drive discoveries and solutions to benefit Michigan and beyond.
Subscribe to the UMBS monthly e-newsletter and follow the field station on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and X (formerly Twitter).
