OzFlux is a national ecosystem research network set up to provide the Australian and global ecosystem modelling communities with nationally consistent observations of energy, carbon and water exchange between the atmosphere and key Australian ecosystems.

OzFlux is part of an international network (FluxNet ) of over 500 flux stations that is designed to provide continuous, long-term micrometeorological measurements to monitor the state of ecosystems globally.

The OzFlux purpose is:

• to understand mechanisms controlling exchanges of carbon, water vapour and energy between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere over a range of time and space scales
  

• to provide data on carbon and water balances of key ecosystems for model testing
  

• to provide information to validate estimates of net primary productivity, evaporation, and energy absorption using remotely sensed radiance data
  

• to provide data to validate new developments in micrometeorological theory for fluxes and air flows in complex terrain
  

• to provide high precision CO2 concentrations measurements (at Cape Grim ) for use in regional, continental and global atmospheric inverse studies of the carbon cycle.