Project Funding: 2009 - 2011

NRA: 2009 NASA: Directed Funding   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
Carbon storage in vegetation represents an important reservoir within the global carbon cycle, and changes in carbon uptake by and storage within vegetation and their soils can have significant impact on the global carbon balance. Vegetation biomass density (Mg dry weight per hectare) is used to estimate the amount of carbon stored in vegetation and emitted to the atmosphere when ecosystems are disturbed (IPCC, 2006). Emissions from vegetation disturbance and land-use and land-cover change are considered the most uncertain component of the global carbon cycle. The uncertainty is attributed to large errors in the spatial distribution of vegetation biomass as well as discrepancies in estimates of land cover and land use change (Houghton et al., 2009). Apart from its scientific merit in understanding the global carbon cycle, accurate and precise quantification of emissions from land use change has also become a key issue for policy makers in light of recent developments relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) in developing nations as a climate mitigation strategy. NASA’s future DESDynl mission will radically improve the current capability by providing direct measurements of biomass from active sensors (Lidar and SAR). The high precision and accuracy of biomass estimation from DESDynl will quantify carbon stock and changes, improve the geographic distribution of carbon sources and sinks, and reduce the uncertainty in global carbon cycle. However, before the launch of DESDynl, distribution of biomass and carbon storage produced from the existing remote sensing and in situ measurements will provide sub-optimum, but necessary information to develop national and international scale REDD policies and Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) frameworks (Goetz et al., 2009; Gibbs et al., 2007) This pilot project is designed to address the urgent need for geospatially explicit, consistent carbon and biomass inventory information to inform national and international policy making by addressing two objectives: 1. To develop prototype data products of national and global biomass (and carbon storage/emissions) that can be assessed with respect to how they meet the nation’s needs for Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) of carbon inventories. 2. To demonstrate our readiness to produce a consistent global biomass/carbon stock distribution using the existing in situ and satellite observations to meet the MRV requirements.

Publications:

Hall, F. G., Hilker, T., Coops, N. C. 2012. Data assimilation of photosynthetic light-use efficiency using multi-angular satellite data: I. Model formulation. Remote Sensing of Environment. 121, 301-308. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2012.02.007

Hilker, T., Hall, F. G., Tucker, C. J., Coops, N. C., Black, T. A., Nichol, C. J., Sellers, P. J., Barr, A., Hollinger, D. Y., Munger, J. W. 2012. Data assimilation of photosynthetic light-use efficiency using multi-angular satellite data: II Model implementation and validation. Remote Sensing of Environment. 121, 287-300. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2012.02.008

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

• G-LiHT: Multi-Sensor Airborne Image Data from Denali to the Yucatan   --   (Bruce Cook, Lawrence A Corp, Douglas Morton, Joel McCorkel)   [abstract]   [poster]
• Terrestrial Ecosystem, Carbon Cycle, Landuse Landcover Change, Biodiversity (TECLUB) Measurement Requirements for the Next Decade   --   (Forrest G Hall, Scott J Goetz)   [abstract]
• Mapping Stand Ages of Primary Forests in Northern Hemisphere Using Remote Sensing Data   --   (Gong Zhang, Weile Wang, Ensheng Weng, Sangram Ganguly, Sassan Saatchi, Ramakrishna R. Nemani)   [abstract]

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

• North American Carbon Program (NACP) Project Profile
• NASA Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) Project Profile