Potter, Christopher: NASA ARC (Project Lead)
Project Funding:
2008 - 2011
NRA: 2007 NASA: Carbon Cycle Science
Funded by NASA
Abstract:
This proposal will bring together investigators with backgrounds in simulation modeling and remote sensing of terrestrial ecosystem carbon fluxes (sources and sinks of CO2) with global circulation model (GCM) scientists. Our project team has a wealth of experience in both high-resolution (1-km or finer) satellite observation studies of land cover dynamics and atmospheric CO2 forcing of global climate. The main objective of the project will be to augment the capacity of advanced carbon-climate models with additions of new scenario-based algorithms for land cover disturbances and terrestrial ecosystem carbon fluxes based on high-resolution analyses of NASA satellite data sets that span the past 25-30 years of climate variations. We will analyze both pre-MODIS (e.g., AVHRR) and MODIS land cover and greenness index alterations and anomalies in relation to large-scale climate events such as cycles of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Arctic Oscillation (AO). Statistical representations of vegetation greenness dynamics associated with GCM predicted climate events will be constructed from the satellite greenness record for each 2x2 degree land cover area of the Earth. The ecosystem model NASA-CASA will be run to predict CO2 sources and sinks at high spatial resolution within all 2x2 degree GCM cells over the period 1980-present. Spatially aggregated versions (to the GCM grid resolution) of these ecosystem model predictions of land cover change and surface carbon fluxes will include ecosystem disturbance regimes from time series (re)analysis of the AVHRR and MODIS satellite land products. This will result for the first time in coupling of climate-driven land cover alternations and associated terrestrial CO2 fluxes, nested within GCM simulations of atmospheric greenhouse gas forcing on century-long time scales. We will perform two GCM scenario experiments: one with no disturbance and another simulation with disturbance-model parameters set for maximum disturbances. The difference between these simulations would integrate over time the accumulated effect of an extreme (maximum possible) disturbance scenario. The main goal of these coupled simulations will be to bracket the uncertainty in projections of climate change and CO2 levels in the atmosphere in year 2100 due to the uncertainty in naturally occurring disturbances. Our study will directly address NASA Strategic Plan Sub-goal 3A for deployment of the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP), Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM), Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), and Landsat Continuity missions. Predictions from the newly coupled Integrated Climate Carbon Model (INCCA) - Disturbance model will help interpret observations made by these future Earth observing satellite sensors.
2010 NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting Poster(s)
- The Carbon Budget of California
-- (Christopher Potter)
[abstract]
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):
