Harvard Forest’s signature climate research infrastructure – the Environmental Measurement Station tower – has gotten a vital upgrade thanks to support from the Salata Institute and Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. A new, taller tower installed in summer 2025 will continue the world’s longest-running carbon flux dataset from the Forest’s Environmental Measurement Station (EMS).
The tower measures carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides, ozone, and other trace gases several times per second. Launched by SEAS/EPS Professor Steve Wofsy in 1991, it was the first of its kind in the world, and continues to provide core (public) data for global climate models.
Crucial leadership for the tower upgrade and its data continuity was provided by HF Senior Ecologist Jackie Matthes, HF Research Assistant Mark VanScoy, HF Field Technician Maxwell Lutz, and Bill Munger, senior research fellow in atmospheric chemistry at the Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
The Harvard Gazette recently highlighted the new EMS tower and its vital contributions to ecosystem science.
Data from the EMS tower is free and publicly available and can be explored in the Harvard Forest data archive.
Photo by David Trilling shows Mark VanScoy climbing the newly installed EMS tower in summer 2025.
