Abstract. We present an open-path mid-infrared dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) system capable of precise measurement of the stable water isotopologues H216O and HD16O. This system ran in a remote configuration at a rural test site for 3.75 months with 60 % uptime and achieved a precision of < 2 ‰ on the normalized ratio of H216O and
HD16O (δD) in 1000 s. Here, we compare the δD
values from the DCS system to those from the National Ecological Observatory
Network (NEON) isotopologue point sensor network. Over the multi-month
campaign, the mean difference between the DCS δD values and the NEON δD values from a similar ecosystem is < 2 ‰ with a standard deviation of 18 ‰, which demonstrates the inherent accuracy of DCS measurements over a variety of atmospheric conditions. We observe time-varying diurnal profiles and seasonal trends that are mostly correlated between the sites on daily timescales. This observation motivates the development of denser ecological monitoring networks aimed at understanding regional- and synoptic-scale water transport. Precise and accurate open-path measurements using DCS provide new
capabilities for such networks.