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Taking stock of circumboreal forest carbon with spaceborne LiDAR
Christopher
Neigh, NASA GSFC, christopher.s.neigh@nasa.gov
Ross
Nelson, NASA GSFC, ross.f.nelson@nasa.gov
Kenneth
Jon
Ranson, NASA GSFC, kenneth.j.ranson@nasa.gov
(Presenter)
Hank
Margolis, Université Laval, hank.margolis@sbf.ulaval.ca
Paul
Montesano, NASA GSFC/SSAI, paul.m.montesano@nasa.gov
Guoqing
Sun, NASA GSFC/UMD, guoqing.sun@nasa.gov
Viacheslav
Kharuk, Russian Academy of Sciences, kharuk@ksc.krasn.ru
Erik
Næsset, Department of Ecology and Natural Resource Management, erik.naesset@umb.no
Michael
Wulder, Canadian Forest Service, mwulder@nrcan.gc.ca
Hans
Erik
Andersen, US Forest Service, handersen@fs.fed.us
The boreal forest accounts for one-third of global forests, but remains largely inaccessible to ground-based measurements and monitoring. It contains large quantities of carbon in its vegetation and soils, and research suggests that it will be subject to increasingly severe climate-driven disturbance. Here, we use a suite of ground, airborne (PALS, ALTM) and space-based (Landsat, MODIS, ASTER, ICESat GLAS) measurement techniques to derive the first satellite-based map of aboveground carbon, for the entire circumboreal forest biome. Incorporating these mapping techniques with uncertainty analysis, we estimate total aboveground carbon of 38.0 ± 3.1 petagrams. This boreal forest carbon is mostly concentrated from 50 − 55º N in eastern Canada and from 55 − 60º N in eastern Eurasia. Both of these regions are expected to warm > 3º C by 2100, and monitoring the effects of warming on these stocks is important to understanding its future carbon balance. Our maps establish a baseline for future quantification of circumboreal carbon and the described technique should provide a robust method for future monitoring of the spatial and temporal changes of the aboveground carbon content.
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Poster Session 1-A
(Tue 11:00 AM)
Associated Project(s):
Poster Location ID: 7
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