“Secret garden.” That is the first word that comes to mind as we step into the gates of the Berlin Rothenburgstrasse ICOS Ecosystem station in the lush green neighbourhood of Steglitz in Berlin, Germany.
It's the middle of summer, and the greenery sprawls in every direction, and you can almost feel the trees themselves breathing the city air. Situated a mere 6 kilometres from the famous avenue of Kurfürstendamm of the western city centre, the Rothenburgstrasse station appears calm. Behind its unassuming facade, however, greenhouse gas measurements are running around the clock, all year round.
Dr Fred Meier, Principal Investigator of the station takes us on a tour of the station, which is part of the Urban Climate Observatory (UCO) Berlin and operated by the Chair of Climatology at the Institute of Ecology at the Technische Universität Berlin. In the middle of the garden, reaching above the trees, stands a 40-meter eddy covariance tower, providing profiles of carbon dioxide fluxes and concentrations as well as profiles of air temperature, humidity and other variables.
The measurement tower was set up in 2018 and the station joined the ICOS network a few years later in 2022. It is one of the five urban measurement stations in the ICOS network of around 180 stations. The station is well suited for greenhouse gas measurements in the city.