The development of Biosphere 2 as a research facility gives investigators a far greater degree of control on environmental conditions than may exist in other settings. Current and past studies have involved varying carbon dioxide levels, temperature and moisture, which can be controlled on a daily basis by staff. However, as the facility expands its research and outreach missions, there is a pressing need to understand how the control of conditions inside the mesocosm environments impacts the sustainable use of energy and water resources. The assessment of power and water needs for new experiments will improve overall understanding of the costs and impacts of research for investigators, staff and visitors. To that end, a systems model was developed to represent the coupled processes controlling temperature and humidity inside the Biosphere 2 biome enclosures. This model included a simple land surface model to simulate radiative energy balance, a model for convective energy and moisture transport due to circulation of air, and a component to calculate the energy use required to maintain a given temperature and humidity constraint within the biome.
Results/Conclusions
The systems model developed here shows how simple tools can be used to identify resource needs and costs associated with research in a mesocosm environment that were not adequately identified previously. The model demonstrates that the management of environmental variables inside the Biosphere 2 facility is an important consideration with regard to the overall sustainability of operations and those variables must be accounted for by management and investigators at the site. Using simple models such as this, basic science outreach programs can also be developed that integrate the research and outreach missions at Biosphere 2 to highlight innovations and applications of sustainability science. Additionally, visitors to Biosphere 2 will be able to see the effect of different environmental conditions on the resource needs of the facility and gain a better appreciation for the scale and scope of effort not only in terms of the physical needs of researchers (personnel, materials) but also the energy and water resources required to maintain operations.
