NEON prototype airborne mission over Bodega to Tahoe Transect: Hyperspectral data to assess water stress of major ecosystems along an elevation gradient from coastal California to the summit of the Sierra Nevada.
Falk
Matthias, UC Davis, mfalk@cstars.ucdavis.edu
Susan
L
Ustin, UC Davis, slustin@ucdavis.edu
(Presenting)
Quinn
J
Hart, UC Davis, qjhart@ucdavis.edu
Michael
Gertz, UC Davis, gertz@cs.ucdavis.edu
An understanding of the coupling between the strength of the California upwelling system and terrestrial ecosystem carbon exchange is the central scientific question. The geographic context is one in which there is a diversity of ecosystems that are believed to be sensitive to climatological changes.
The goal of the NSF funded project called 'COMET: Coast-to-Mountain Environmental Transect' is to develop a practical cyberinfrastructure prototype to facilitate the study of the way in which multiple environmental factors, including climatic variability, affect major ecosystems along an elevation gradient from coastal California to the summit of the Sierra Nevada.
The 2007 AVIRIS mission was flown as a NEON prototype mission, to provide AVIRIS cover over Bodega Bay Lab, Jasper Ridge (Stanford), Tonzi/Viara Ranch (Dennis Baldocchi, UC Berkeley, Ameriflux site), Blodgett Forest (Alan Goldstein, UC Berkeley, Ameriflux site). These sites are located across the COMET Transect. AVIRIS is a 224 band VIS-NIR-SWIR hyperspectral with 3m pixels in it's current configuration. AVIRIS data was collected sometime between late August and early October 2007.
The hyperspectral imagery was used to validate some of the input layers needed for the Weather Research Forecast model (WRF) and the UC DAVIS vegetation-atmosphere ACASA model as part of the COMET modelling effort. The hyperspectral data will also be used to asses MODIS predictions of canopy water content along the COMET transect. The AVIRIS data provides the key for developing validation of canopy water content from MODIS. Water content decreases with summer drought across California but will likely differ along the elevational transect.
NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Active Awards Represented by this Poster: