Spectranomics: Remote Sensing of Canopy Chemical and Biological Diversity in Tropical Forests
David
E.
Knapp, Carnegie Institution, deknapp@stanford.edu
(Presenting)
Roberta
E.
Martin, Carnegie Institution, remartin@stanford.edu
Gregory
P.
Asner, Carnegie Institution, gpa@stanford.edu
The chemical diversity of humid tropical forests is thought to exceed that of all other terrestrial ecosystems combined, with cascading effects on spectroscopic patterns of tropical canopies acquired from new airborne and future space-based imaging spectrometers. To address this new frontier in spectroscopy, we developed the Carnegie Spectranomics Project (CSP), which seeks to quantify and understand linkages between chemical, spectral, and taxonomic patterns among tropical forest species. The CSP has collected and analyzed more than 3,500 species from C. and S. America, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, showing that high-fidelity spectral patterns among species are driven by chemical variation at site and global scales. The Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO) in collaboration the AVIRIS team collected spectroscopic image data that was co-flown and co-aligned with the CAO’s lidar. The lidar has been critical in characterizing the 3-D structure of the tree canopies such that the best quality image spectra can be used to extract chemistry data remotely. The fusion of these two sources of data make it possible to improve the ability to relate field measurements of leaf spectra to the canopy scale by providing critical data for modeling the observation and illumination parameters under which each pixel’s spectra was collected.
Presentation Type: Poster
Poster Session: Ecosystems Science
NASA TE Funded Awards Represented:
NONE: Related Activity or Previously Funded TE Award