Airborne field studies provide short but intensive periods of observation that provide excellent opportunities for model evaluation but also to improve the representation of the various processes they ambition to represent. This goes well beyond the evaluation of emissions.

When it comes to modelling tropical forests such as the Amazon and their responses to climate change, challenges include the representation of fire in models (response of intact forest to detrimental climate), lack of representation of secondary and degraded forests in models (disturbance and recovery dynamics; new Plant Functional Types for secondary forests), mosaic and edge effects (i.e., landscape heterogeneity) and representation of agriculture.