Project Funding: 2012 - 2014

NRA: 2011 NASA: Carbon Monitoring System   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
Neither of the pilot studies in NASA s Phase 1 of the CMS has explicitly considered changes in terrestrial carbon storage that result from land use and land-cover change (LULCC). The biomass pilot study could be extended to estimate changes in aboveground carbon density, but modeling and ancillary data will be needed to account for changes in soils, downed wood, and wood products. The flux pilot study has, so far, concentrated on short-term fluxes of carbon (i.e., photosynthesis, respiration, etc.) and has paid less attention to the longer-term, structural changes that result from disturbance and recovery. Yet it is these changes in biomass and soil carbon that define the net contribution of LULCC to the global carbon budget. We propose (1) to develop and demonstrate a method for monitoring changes in carbon density in forests and (2) to produce a map of gross and net fluxes of carbon associated with deforestation, reforestation, growth and degradation for the entire tropics. We will focus on the changes in carbon density that result from disturbance and recovery. We propose to use multi-scale changes in forest cover (gains and losses) combined with lidar-based estimates of aboveground carbon density to inform a carbon-tracking model that will calculate losses and gains of carbon at a spatial resolution of 250m across the tropics and at a resolution of 30m for two regions within southeast Asia and the Congo Basin. As a part of this research, we will determine the propagation of error for each method (change in land cover, change in carbon density), including allometry error and modeling error. The analysis of error will help define how small a disturbance (in area and in carbon density) can be observed. And, using a carbon tracking model, we will investigate the effect of this minimum detection on carbon emissions. The work proposed here will complement the current pilot studies and will track changes in terrestrial carbon density, in particular the changes that result from disturbance and recovery of forests. The model will use a combination of MODIS, Landsat, and GLAS data to determine annual changes in carbon density in aboveground living and dead biomass, belowground biomass, litter, coarse woody debris, and wood products. The work will focus on identifying, characterizing, and measuring disturbances (and recovery) and on calculating the resulting fluxes of carbon. The products of this work will be (1) a methodological approach incorporating satellite data, a carbon-tracking model, and error analyses, and (2) multi-scale gridded data sets showing the distribution of carbon sources and sinks attributable to forest disturbance and recovery. The method will not be limited to the data inputs used here. Rather the model will be flexible enough to accommodate other data sets as they evolve. The products will include the data sets used to calculate carbon sources and sinks (rates and intensities of disturbance and aboveground carbon densities), the errors in each data set and the propagation of error through the calculation of net carbon flux. The work is relevant to societal needs in two ways: first, carbon emissions from LULCC are an important but poorly constrained component in the global carbon balance; this work will demonstrate the capacity of satellite-based measurements to reduce the error of that flux. Second, project-level and national-level emissions are the basis for evaluating emission reduction strategies, arguably the most effective mechanism for reducing emissions of carbon from developing countries.

Publications:

Anderegg, W. R. L., Ballantyne, A. P., Smith, W. K., Majkut, J., Rabin, S., Beaulieu, C., Birdsey, R., Dunne, J. P., Houghton, R. A., Myneni, R. B., Pan, Y., Sarmiento, J. L., Serota, N., Shevliakova, E., Tans, P., Pacala, S. W. 2015. Tropical nighttime warming as a dominant driver of variability in the terrestrial carbon sink. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 112(51), 15591-15596. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1521479112

Ballantyne, A. P., Andres, R., Houghton, R., Stocker, B. D., Wanninkhof, R., Anderegg, W., Cooper, L. A., DeGrandpre, M., Tans, P. P., Miller, J. B., Alden, C., White, J. W. C. 2015. Audit of the global carbon budget: estimate errors and their impact on uptake uncertainty. Biogeosciences. 12(8), 2565-2584. DOI: 10.5194/bg-12-2565-2015

Goetz, S. J., Hansen, M., Houghton, R. A., Walker, W., Laporte, N., Busch, J. 2015. Measurement and monitoring needs, capabilities and potential for addressing reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation under REDD+. Environmental Research Letters. 10(12), 123001. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/123001

Olofsson, P., Kuemmerle, T., Griffiths, P., Knorn, J., Baccini, A., Gancz, V., Blujdea, V., Houghton, R. A., Abrudan, I. V., Woodcock, C. E. 2011. Carbon implications of forest restitution in post-socialist Romania. Environmental Research Letters. 6(4), 045202. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/045202

Pan, Y., Birdsey, R. A., Fang, J., Houghton, R., Kauppi, P. E., Kurz, W. A., Phillips, O. L., Shvidenko, A., Lewis, S. L., Canadell, J. G., Ciais, P., Jackson, R. B., Pacala, S. W., McGuire, A. D., Piao, S., Rautiainen, A., Sitch, S., Hayes, D. 2011. A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World's Forests. Science. 333(6045), 988-993. DOI: 10.1126/science.1201609

Baccini, A., Goetz, S. J., Walker, W. S., Laporte, N. T., Sun, M., Sulla-Menashe, D., Hackler, J., Beck, P. S. A., Dubayah, R., Friedl, M. A., Samanta, S., Houghton, R. A. 2012. Estimated carbon dioxide emissions from tropical deforestation improved by carbon-density maps. Nature Climate Change. 2(3), 182-185. DOI: 10.1038/nclimate1354

Gloor, M., Gatti, L., Brienen, R., Feldpausch, T. R., Phillips, O. L., Miller, J., Ometto, J. P., Rocha, H., Baker, T., de Jong, B., Houghton, R. A., Malhi, Y., Aragao, L. E. O. C., Guyot, J., Zhao, K., Jackson, R., Peylin, P., Sitch, S., Poulter, B., Lomas, M., Zaehle, S., Huntingford, C., Levy, P., Lloyd, J. 2012. The carbon balance of South America: a review of the status, decadal trends and main determinants. Biogeosciences. 9(12), 5407-5430. DOI: 10.5194/bg-9-5407-2012

Goetz, S. J., Bond-Lamberty, B., Law, B. E., Hicke, J. A., Huang, C., Houghton, R. A., McNulty, S., O'Halloran, T., Harmon, M., Meddens, A. J. H., Pfeifer, E. M., Mildrexler, D., Kasischke, E. S. 2012. Observations and assessment of forest carbon dynamics following disturbance in North America. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences. 117(G2). DOI: 10.1029/2011JG001733

Houghton, R. A. 2012. Carbon emissions and the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 4(6), 597-603. DOI: 10.1016/j.cosust.2012.06.006

Houghton, R. A. 2012. Historic Changes in Terrestrial Carbon Storage in: Recarbonization of the Biosphere. Springer Netherlands, 59-82. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-4159-1_4

Houghton, R. A., House, J. I., Pongratz, J., van der Werf, G. R., DeFries, R. S., Hansen, M. C., Le Quere, C., Ramankutty, N. 2012. Carbon emissions from land use and land-cover change. Biogeosciences. 9(12), 5125-5142. DOI: 10.5194/bg-9-5125-2012

Erb, K., Kastner, T., Luyssaert, S., Houghton, R. A., Kuemmerle, T., Olofsson, P., Haberl, H. 2013. Bias in the attribution of forest carbon sinks. Nature Climate Change. 3(10), 854-856. DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2004

Houghton, R. A. 2014. The emissions of carbon from deforestation and degradation in the tropics: past trends and future potential. Carbon Management. 4(5), 539-546. DOI: 10.4155/cmt.13.41

Houghton, R.A. 2013. Role of forests and impact of deforestation in the global carbon cycle. Pages 15-38 in: F. Achard & M.C. Hansen (editors). Global Forest Monitoring from Earth Observation. CRC Press, Boca Raton. ISBN 9781466552012 - CAT# K15197

Patra, P. K., Canadell, J. G., Houghton, R. A., Piao, S. L., Oh, N., Ciais, P., Manjunath, K. R., Chhabra, A., Wang, T., Bhattacharya, T., Bousquet, P., Hartman, J., Ito, A., Mayorga, E., Niwa, Y., Raymond, P. A., Sarma, V. V. S. S., Lasco, R. 2013. The carbon budget of South Asia. Biogeosciences. 10(1), 513-527. DOI: 10.5194/bg-10-513-2013

Tyukavina, A., Stehman, S. V., Potapov, P. V., Turubanova, S. A., Baccini, A., Goetz, S. J., Laporte, N. T., Houghton, R. A., Hansen, M. C. 2013. National-scale estimation of gross forest aboveground carbon loss: a case study of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Environmental Research Letters. 8(4), 044039. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044039

Valentini, R., Arneth, A., Bombelli, A., Castaldi, S., Cazzolla Gatti, R., Chevallier, F., Ciais, P., Grieco, E., Hartmann, J., Henry, M., Houghton, R. A., Jung, M., Kutsch, W. L., Malhi, Y., Mayorga, E., Merbold, L., Murray-Tortarolo, G., Papale, D., Peylin, P., Poulter, B., Raymond, P. A., Santini, M., Sitch, S., Vaglio Laurin, G., van der Werf, G. R., Williams, C. A., Scholes, R. J. 2014. A full greenhouse gases budget of Africa: synthesis, uncertainties, and vulnerabilities. Biogeosciences. 11(2), 381-407. DOI: 10.5194/bg-11-381-2014

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

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