Project Funding: 2009 - 2012

NRA: 2008 NASA: Terrestrial Ecology   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
The boreal forest accounts for one-third of global forests, stores large quatities of carbon that may be thousands of years old, and is subject to rapid disturbance mechanisms driven by climate warming. Understanding boreal forest above ground carbon stocks is critical for closing the Earth's carbon budget, however little is known about the spatial distribution of boreal carbon. (a) We will use a successful hierarchical sampling approach involving ground plots, airborne lidar, and a spaceborne lidar to develop estimates of the quantity of aboveground biomass and carbon (C) stocks in the circumpolar boreal forest. (b) We will capitalize on our recent work combining space lidar data - Geosciences Laser Altimeter System, GLAS, onboard the ICESat Satellite - with MODIS land surface products, supported by Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) or ASTER derived forest cover maps and available digital elevation (DEM) model data to tabulate and map the spatial distribution of aboveground biomass and C stocks in the boreal forest for (i) the major ecozones and cover types of the circumpolar boreal forest; and (ii) the major watersheds in the boreal forest biome. (c) We will evaluate the statistical uncertainty of aboveground biomass and carbon stocks by evaluating different techniques for assessing variance estimators for the type of transect sampling done using spaceborne lidars.

Publications:

Montesano, P., Sun, G., Dubayah, R., Ranson, K. 2014. The Uncertainty of Plot-Scale Forest Height Estimates from Complementary Spaceborne Observations in the Taiga-Tundra Ecotone. Remote Sensing. 6(10), 10070-10088. DOI: 10.3390/rs61010070

Montesano, P. M., Nelson, R. F., Dubayah, R. O., Sun, G., Cook, B. D., Ranson, K. J. R., Naesset, E., Kharuk, V. 2014. The uncertainty of biomass estimates from LiDAR and SAR across a boreal forest structure gradient. Remote Sensing of Environment. 154, 398-407. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2014.01.027

Montesano, P. M., Rosette, J., Sun, G., North, P., Nelson, R. F., Dubayah, R. O., Ranson, K. J., Kharuk, V. 2015. The uncertainty of biomass estimates from modeled ICESat-2 returns across a boreal forest gradient. Remote Sensing of Environment. 158, 95-109. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2014.10.029

Neigh, C. S., Nelson, R. F., Ranson, K. J., Margolis, H. A., Montesano, P. M., Sun, G., Kharuk, V., Naesset, E., Wulder, M. A., Andersen, H. 2013. Taking stock of circumboreal forest carbon with ground measurements, airborne and spaceborne LiDAR. Remote Sensing of Environment. 137, 274-287. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2013.06.019

Ranson, K. J., Montesano, P. M., Nelson, R. 2011. Object-based mapping of the circumpolar taiga-tundra ecotone with MODIS tree cover. Remote Sensing of Environment. 115(12), 3670-3680. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2011.09.006

Sun, G., Ranson, K. J., Guo, Z., Zhang, Z., Montesano, P., Kimes, D. 2011. Forest biomass mapping from lidar and radar synergies. Remote Sensing of Environment. 115(11), 2906-2916. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2011.03.021

Montesano, P. M., Nelson, R., Sun, G., Margolis, H., Kerber, A., Ranson, K. J. 2009. MODIS tree cover validation for the circumpolar taiga-tundra transition zone. Remote Sensing of Environment. 113(10), 2130-2141. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2009.05.021

Nelson, R., Ranson, K. J., Sun, G., Kimes, D. S., Kharuk, V., Montesano, P. 2009. Estimating Siberian timber volume using MODIS and ICESat/GLAS. Remote Sensing of Environment. 113(3), 691-701. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2008.11.010

BOUDREAU, J., NELSON, R., MARGOLIS, H., BEAUDOIN, A., GUINDON, L., KIMES, D. 2008. Regional aboveground forest biomass using airborne and spaceborne LiDAR in Quebec. Remote Sensing of Environment. 112(10), 3876-3890. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2008.06.003

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

• Taiga-Tundra Ecotone Structure Studies   --   (Kenneth Jon Ranson, Guoqing Sun, Paul Montesano, Christopher Neigh, Vyacheslav Kharuk)   [abstract]

2013 NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting Poster(s)

• Taking stock of circumboreal forest carbon with spaceborne LiDAR   --   (Christopher Neigh, Ross Nelson, Kenneth Jon Ranson, Hank Margolis, Paul Montesano, Guoqing Sun, Viacheslav Kharuk, Erik Næsset, Michael Wulder, Hans Erik Andersen)   [abstract]

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

• Progress in Estimating Boreal Eurasia Biomass Based on ICESat GLAS, ASTER GDEM, and Field Measurements   --   (Christopher Neigh, Ross Nelson, Guoqing Sun, Kenneth Jon Ranson, Paul Montesano, Hank A. Margolis)   [abstract]

2010 NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting Poster(s)

• Field and Aircraft Observations in Support of DESDynI   --   (Ralph Dubayah, Kathleen Bergen, Bryan Blair, Bruce Cook, Peter Griffith, Forrest Hall, Megan McGroddy, Paul Montesano, Amy Morrell, Ross Nelson, Wenge Ni-Meister, Michael O'Connell, Jon Ranson, Chelsea Robinson, Jeremy Rubio, Sassan Saatchi, Marc Simard, Paul Siqueira, Alan Strahler, Guoqing Sue, Anuradha Swatantran)   [abstract]   [poster]
• Accuracy of DESDynI Biomass Estimates using Lidar and Data Fusion Methods   --   (Bruce D Cook, Guoqing Sun, Kenneth J Ranson, Paul M Montesano, Scott B Luthcke, J Bryan Blair)   [abstract]   [poster]
• Mapping the circumpolar taiga-tundra ecotone with MODIS tree cover data   --   (Paul M Montesano, Jon Ranson, Ross F Nelson)   [abstract]

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

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