Project Funding: 2006 - 2009

NRA: 2005 NASA: North American Carbon Program   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
This proposal addresses the component of this NRA soliciting integrated analysis of regional and continental data for quantifying the carbon budget of North America, including sources and sinks for atmospheric carbon. This investigation will address the North American Carbon Program (NACP) goals for determining the emissions and uptake of atmospheric carbon and the factors regulating these processes for North America. The investigation will encompass the entire North American landmass with the specific objective of developing critical datasets and understanding of the major environmental drivers and biophysical responses regulating spatial patterns and temporal variability in terrestrial carbon budgets in support of the NACP. Approximately 68-80 percent of the North American region experiences seasonal freezing and thawing with the relative influence of these processes on terrestrial carbon budgets generally increasing at higher latitudes and elevations. The timing and duration of surface and soil freeze-thaw state is closely linked to vegetation phenology and growing season dynamics in northern temperate, sub-alpine, boreal and arctic biomes. Variability in these environmental variables also has been shown to have dramatic impacts on spatial patterns, seasonal to interannual variability and long-term trends in terrestrial carbon budgets and surface-atmosphere trace gas exchange primarily through biophysical controls on both photosynthesis and respiration. These processes are strongly influenced by land cover and soil properties, as well as the timing and condition of regional snow cover. We will exploit satellite active microwave remote sensing capabilities for monitoring land surface thermal and associated moisture dynamics and the global all-weather and high-repeat monitoring capabilities of the SeaWinds Ku-band scatterometer to quantify spatial patterns and daily, seasonal and interannual variability in landscape freeze-thaw status. We will investigate synergistic relationships and trade-offs in relative sensitivity, spatial scale and temporal monitoring capabilities between SeaWinds freeze-thaw and MODIS LST products for quantifying landscape freeze-thaw state and thermal and moisture controls to vegetation gross primary production (GPP) and net primary production (NPP). We will quantify the spatial and temporal patterns of these variables and determine their relative importance in determining seasonal patterns and annual variability in vegetation productivity using a modified form of the MODIS MOD17 algorithm. We will also establish linkages between the microwave based freeze-thaw signal and surface biophysical network measures of the surface energy budget and associated linkages to soil respiration and land-atmosphere CO2 exchange dynamics. We will closely integrate our research, findings and critical datasets within the larger NACP project to provide a comprehensive assessment of the North American carbon budget.

Publications:

EUSKIRCHEN, E. S., McGUIRE, A. D., KICKLIGHTER, D. W., ZHUANG, Q., CLEIN, J. S., DARGAVILLE, R. J., DYE, D. G., KIMBALL, J. S., McDONALD, K. C., MELILLO, J. M., ROMANOVSKY, V. E., SMITH, N. V. 2006. Importance of recent shifts in soil thermal dynamics on growing season length, productivity, and carbon sequestration in terrestrial high-latitude ecosystems. Global Change Biology. 12(4), 731-750. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2006.01113.x

Frolking, S., Milliman, T., McDonald, K., Kimball, J., Zhao, M., Fahnestock, M. 2006. Evaluation of the SeaWinds scatterometer for regional monitoring of vegetation phenology. Journal of Geophysical Research. 111(D17). DOI: 10.1029/2005JD006588

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

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., McDonald, K. C., Zhao, M. 2009. Spring Thaw and Its Effect on Terrestrial Vegetation Productivity in the Western Arctic Observed from Satellite Microwave and Optical Remote Sensing. Earth Interactions. 10(21), 1-22. DOI: 10.1175/EI187.1

Kimball, J. S., Zhao, M., McDonald, K. C., Running, S. W. 2006. Satellite Remote Sensing of Terrestrial Net Primary Production for the Pan-Arctic Basin and Alaska. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change. 11(4), 783-804. DOI: 10.1007/s11027-005-9014-5

Kimball, J. S., Zhao, M., McGuire, A. D., Heinsch, F. A., Clein, J., Calef, M., Jolly, W. M., Kang, S., Euskirchen, S. E., McDonald, K. C., Running, S. W. 2009. 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), 1-30. DOI: 10.1175/EI180.1

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., McDonald, K. C., Cassano, J. J., Running, S. W. 2007. Impacts of large-scale oscillations on pan-Arctic terrestrial net primary production. Geophysical Research Letters. 34(21). DOI: 10.1029/2007GL031605

2013 NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting Poster(s)

• Monitoring the Freeze/Thaw Surface State over Alaska ALOS PALSAR ScanSAR Data   --   (Marzi Azarderakhsh, Kyle McDonald, Nicnolas Steiner, Ronny Schroeder, Bruce Chapman, Andreas Colliander, John S Kimball)   [abstract]

2011 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Poster(s)

• 30-year Northern Hemisphere Freeze/Thaw seasonal trends and associated impacts to vegetation growing seasons and Carbon Exchange   --   (Youngwook Kim, John S Kimball, Ke Zhang, Kyle C McDonald)   [abstract]   [poster]
• Analysis of Surface Inundation Changes within Arctic Permafrost Zones using AMSR-E Fractional Water Cover Retrievals   --   (Jennifer D Watts, John S Kimball, Lucas Jones, Ronny Schroeder, Kyle C McDonald)   [abstract]   [poster]

2010 NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting Poster(s)

• Global Landscape Freeze-Thaw classification using Satellite Microwave Remote Sensing   --   (Youngwook Kim, John S Kimball, Kyle C McDonald, Joe Glassy)   [abstract]   [poster]

2008 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Posters

• Teleconnection Between Large-Scale Oscillations and Northern High-Latitude Terrestrial Net Primary Production   --   (Ke Zhang, John S Kimball, Kyle C McDonald, John J Cassano, Steve W Running)   [abstract]   [poster]

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

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