Project Funding: 2006 - 2008

Funded by NSF, NASA

Abstract:
We developed a new satellite-based approach for regional assessment and monitoring of terrestrial net carbon exchange (NEE) for the pan-Arctic and larger global domain; NEE quantifies the magnitude and direction of land-atmosphere net CO2 exchange and is a fundamental measure of the balance between carbon uptake by vegetation net primary production (NPP) and carbon loss through soil heterotrophic respiration (Rh). We extracted surface soil wetness and temperature information from AMSR-E daily brightness temperature measurements. These data were used as surrogates for soil active layer moisture and temperature controls on soil respiration. We also conducted global simulations using alternative meteorological inputs from the GMAO MERRA product. This information was used with MODIS MOD17 LUE model to estimate GPP and surface soil organic carbon pool maps, and relative magnitudes, spatial patterns and seasonality in Rtot and NEE. Calibration and validation activities involved multiscale comparisons with boreal forest, grassland and tundra CO2 eddy-flux tower and biophysical measurement networks, similar measurements from global FLUXNET sites, stand level ecosystem process model simulations from BIOME-BGC along regional moisture and temperature gradients. This project provides an operational satellite-based approach for regional assessment and monitoring of NEE, the primary measure of carbon exchange between the land and atmosphere, which is being used for informing development of a similar level 4 carbon product under the upcoming Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission. The ftp data directories below include detailed readme files documenting data structure, geographic projection and associated metadata. The associated publications provide detailed information on related science activities.

Publications:

Jones, L. A., Kimball, J. S., McDonald, K. C., Chan, S. T. K., Njoku, E. G., Oechel, W. C. 2007. Satellite Microwave Remote Sensing of Boreal and Arctic Soil Temperatures From AMSR-E. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. 45(7), 2004-2018. DOI: 10.1109/TGRS.2007.898436

Jones, M. O., Kimball, J. S., Jones, L. A., McDonald, K. C. 2012. Satellite passive microwave detection of North America start of season. Remote Sensing of Environment. 123, 324-333. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2012.03.025

Jones, M. O., Jones, L. A., Kimball, J. S., McDonald, K. C. 2011. Satellite passive microwave remote sensing for monitoring global land surface phenology. Remote Sensing of Environment. 115(4), 1102-1114. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2010.12.015

Kimball, J. S., Jones, L. A., Zhang, K., Heinsch, F. A., McDonald, K. C., Oechel, W. C. 2009. A Satellite Approach to Estimate Land-Atmosphere $\hbox{CO}_{2}$ Exchange for Boreal and Arctic Biomes Using MODIS and AMSR-E. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. 47(2), 569-587. DOI: 10.1109/TGRS.2008.2003248

Kimball, J.S., M. Zhao, A.D. McGuire, F.A. Heinsch, J. Clein, M. Calef, W.M. Jolly, S. Kang, S.E. Euskirchen, K.C. McDonald, and S.W. Running, 2007. Recent climate driven increases in vegetation productivity for the Western Arctic: Evidence of an acceleration of the northern terrestrial carbon cycle. Earth Interactions 11, 4, 1-23.

McGuire, A. D., Christensen, T. R., Hayes, D., Heroult, A., Euskirchen, E., Kimball, J. S., Koven, C., Lafleur, P., Miller, P. A., Oechel, W., Peylin, P., Williams, M., Yi, Y. 2012. An assessment of the carbon balance of Arctic tundra: comparisons among observations, process models, and atmospheric inversions. Biogeosciences. 9(8), 3185-3204. DOI: 10.5194/bg-9-3185-2012

McGuire, A. D., Walsh, J. E., Kimball, J. S., Clein, J. S., Euskirchen, S. E., Drobot, S., Herzfeld, U. C., Maslanik, J., Lammers, R. B., Rawlins, M. A., Vorosmarty, C. J., Rupp, T. S., Wu, W., Calef, M. 2008. The Western Arctic Linkage Experiment (WALE): Overview and Synthesis. Earth Interactions. 12(7), 1-13. DOI: 10.1175/2008EI239.1

Yi, Y., Kimball, J. S., Jones, L. A., Reichle, R. H., McDonald, K. C. 2011. Evaluation of MERRA Land Surface Estimates in Preparation for the Soil Moisture Active Passive Mission. Journal of Climate. 24(15), 3797-3816. DOI: 10.1175/2011JCLI4034.1

Zhang, K., Kimball, J. S., Zhao, M., Oechel, W. C., Cassano, J., Running, S. W. 2007. Sensitivity of pan-Arctic terrestrial net primary productivity simulations to daily surface meteorology from NCEP-NCAR and ERA-40 reanalyses. Journal of Geophysical Research. 112(G1). DOI: 10.1029/2006JG000249

Zhang, K., Kimball, J. S., Mu, Q., Jones, L. A., Goetz, S. J., Running, S. W. 2009. Satellite based analysis of northern ET trends and associated changes in the regional water balance from 1983 to 2005. Journal of Hydrology. 379(1-2), 92-110. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.09.047

Zhang, K., Kimball, J. S., Hogg, E. H., Zhao, M., Oechel, W. C., Cassano, J. J., Running, S. W. 2008. Satellite-based model detection of recent climate-driven changes in northern high-latitude vegetation productivity. Journal of Geophysical Research. 113(G3). DOI: 10.1029/2007JG000621

Zhang, K., Kimball, J. S., Kim, Y., McDonald, K. C. 2011. Changing freeze-thaw seasons in northern high latitudes and associated influences on evapotranspiration. Hydrological Processes. 25(26), 4142-4151. DOI: 10.1002/hyp.8350

2015 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Poster(s)

• Understanding water control on vegetation growth in Eurasia from GRACE-derived terrestrial water storage   --   (Geruo A, Isabella Velicogna, John S Kimball, Yongwook Kim)   [abstract]

More details may be found in the following project profile(s):

• North American Carbon Program (NACP) Project Profile