Smith, Steven: Pacific NW National Laboratory (PNNL) (Project Lead)
Jain, Atul: University of Illinois (Co-Investigator)
Keller, Klaus: The Pennsylvania State University (Co-Investigator)
Zeng, Ning: University of Maryland (Co-Investigator)
Shui, Bin: ACEEE (Participant)
Project Funding:
2005 - 2008
NRA: 2004 NASA: Carbon Cycle Science
Funded by NASA
Abstract:
The terrestrial carbon cycle has been substantially altered by human activities and this alteration is continuing globally. Projecting the future behavior of the carbon-cycle, therefore, requires a coupled analysis of the carbon-cycle and the socio-economic forces driving land-use changes. Such an analysis is also required in order to consistently produce projections of land-use related emissions of carbon-dioxide and other compounds. Finally, analysis of carbon management options requires that the close coupling between the carbon- and socio-economic systems be explicitly considered.
This project will address these issues by using remote sensing information to improve long-term projections of land-use emissions, particularly CO2, CO, and CH4, and to provide for the analysis of the implications of land-use changes for atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, atmospheric chemistry, and carbon management. This will be accomplished within the -MiniCAM framework, the state of the art integrated assessment modeling framework developed at the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI). Remote sensing data products and the results of models driven by remote sensing data will be used to improve the representation of the carbon-cycle and the Earth's land-surface characteristics. Critical to this project is the use of spatially resolved data products and earth system model outputs which will allow analysis of different regions and sub-regions as needed. This will enable global and regional analysis of carbon dynamics, carbon sequestration potential, and coupled dynamics of the carbon-cycle and the socio-economic systems that are driving land-use and climate changes. Both parametric uncertainty and uncertainty due to different model spatial definitions will be quantified. A particular focus will be analysis of the coupled carbon-cycle and socio-economic system as represented in the JGCRI integrated assessment framework. The result will be long-term emissions projections that are substantially improved over available data in terms of spatial and temporal detail, consistency with remote sensing data, and integration with socio-economic drivers. Analysis will be conducted for the US Environmental Protection Agency under the carbon management portion of this proposal.
The capabilities developed through this proposal will be integrated into the JGCRI integrated assessment frameworks that will be used on a routine basis in future work for government agencies. The use of remote sensing data will address a key need in policy analysis: the need for the use of the best available information in a consistent, documented manner.
Publications:
Smith, S. J., Rothwell, A. 2013. Carbon density and anthropogenic land-use influences on net land-use change emissions. Biogeosciences. 10(10), 6323-6337. DOI: 10.5194/bg-10-6323-2013
2011 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Poster(s)
- Data and Model Structure Impacts on Carbon-Cycle Projections
-- (Steven J Smith, Andrew Rothwell)
[abstract]
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):
