Transcript Bill Emanuel

Science Mission
Directorate
Overview of NASA Research in Carbon
Data Fusion and Data Assimilation
Carbon Fusion Workshop, May, 2006
•Bill Emanuel
•Program Scientist, Terrestrial Ecology
•Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Focus Area
NASA’s Role in Earth Science
2006 NASA Strategic Plan
NASA’s Mission: To pioneer the future in space
exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics
research.
Develop a balanced overall program of
science, exploration, and aeronautics
consistent with the redirection of the human
spaceflight program to focus on exploration.
Study Earth from space to advance scientific
understanding and meet societal needs.
Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Focus Area
Research activities focus on providing data and
information derived from remote sensing systems to
answer the following science questions:
• How are global ecosystems changing?
• What changes are occurring in global land cover and land use,
and what are their causes?
• How do ecosystems, land cover and biogeochemical cycles
respond to and affect global environmental change?
• What are the consequences of land cover and land use change for
human societies and the sustainability of ecosystems?
• What are the consequences of climate change and increased
human activities for coastal regions?
• How will carbon cycle dynamics and terrestrial and marine
ecosystems change in the future?
U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP)
• President’s Climate Change Research
Initiative, June, 2001.
• Integrates the research of 13 Federal
agencies.
• Includes the U.S. Global Change Research
Program.
• Strategic Plan, July, 2003.
• Chapter 7 describes Carbon Cycle research
within the CCSP.
Atmospheric Composition
Climate Variability and Change
Global Water Cycle
Land-Use/Land-Cover Change
Global Carbon Cycle
Ecosystems
Human Contributions and Responses
Surface and Aircraft Measurements
Integrated
global
Human-Ecosystems-Climate Interactions (Model-Data Fusion, Assimilation); Global Air-Sea Flux
analyses
Sub-regional
Funded
T
High-Resolution Atmospheric CO2
sources/sinks
Unfunded
Southern Ocean Carbon Program,
Process controls;
Air-Sea
CO
Flux
2
Partnership
errors in sink reduced
Models w/improved
T
Physiology & Functional Types
T = Technology
ecosystem functions
development
Reduced flux uncertainties;
Coastal Carbon
= Field
coastal carbon dynamics
Campaign
Global Ocean Carbon /
Reduced flux uncertainties;
Particle Abundance
Report
global carbon dynamics
Vegetation 3-D Structure,
Terrestrial carbon stocks &
T
Biomass, & Disturbance
species habitat characterized
Global CH4; Wetlands, Flooding & Permafrost
CH4 sources characterized and quantified
Global Atmospheric CO2 (OCO)
N. American Carbon Program
Land Use Change in Amazonia
2002: Global productivity and
land cover resolution coarse;
Large uncertainties in
biomass, fluxes, disturbance,
and coastal events
Regional carbon sources/sinks quantified for planet
N. America’s carbon budget quantified
Effects of tropical deforestation quantified; uncertainties
in tropical carbon source reduced
Improvements:
P
Case
Studies
Land Cover (Landsat)
LDCM
Ocean Color (SeaWiFS, MODIS)
Vegetation,
Fire
(AVHRR,
MODIS)
Vegetation
(AVHRR,
MODIS)
2002
2004
Process
Understanding
2006
NA Carbon
Models &
Computing
Capacity
Land Cover (OLI)
Systematic Observations
Ocean/Land (VIIRS/NPP)
IPCC
NA Carbon
2008
Ocean/Land (VIIRS/NPOESS)
2010
IPCC
Global C Cycle
2012
2014
Goals: Global productivity and land cover change at fine
resolution; biomass and carbon fluxes quantified; useful
ecological forecasts and improved climate change projections
Knowledge Base
Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Roadmap
2015
Global C Cycle
TransCom Inverse Model Comparisons
Inverse model
solution indicate a
net carbon sink in
temperate North
America.
TransCom. Gurney et al. 2002. Nature 415:626–630. (http://transcom.colostate.edu/)
U.S. North American Carbon Program
The central objective of the U.S. North American Carbon
Program is to measure and understand carbon stocks and the
sources and sinks of CO2, CH4, and CO in North America and in
adjacent ocean regions.
• Approaching 120 projects.
• Involving more than 200
investigators.
• About 10 major observation &
experimental networks.
• A focus for remote sensing
observations and research.
• Developing collaboration with
Mexico & Canada.
NACP Science Plan
• Published in 2002
• Prepared by the U.S. Carbon
Cycle Science Steering Group
• Steven Wofsy and Robert
Harriss, Co-Chairs
• Describes a broad science
questions, goals, and a
framework for a North
American Carbon Program.
U.S. NACP Science Questions
1. What is the carbon balance of North America and adjacent
oceans? What are the geographic patterns of fluxes of CO2,
CH4, and CO? How is the balance changing over time?
(Diagnosis)
2. What processes control the sources and sinks of CO2, CH4,
and CO, and how do the controls change with time?
(Attribution/Processes)
3. Are there potential surprises (could sources increase or
sinks disappear)? (Prediction)
4. How can we enhance and manage long-lived carbon sinks
("sequestration"), and provide resources to support
decision makers? (Decision support)
U.S. NACP Goals
• Develop quantitative scientific knowledge, robust
observations, and models to determine the emissions
and uptake of CO2, CH4, and CO, changes in carbon
stocks, and the factors regulating these processes for
North America and adjacent ocean basins.
• Develop the scientific basis to implement full carbon
accounting on regional and continental scales. This is
the knowledge base needed to design monitoring
programs for natural and managed CO2 sinks and
emissions of CH4.
• Support long-term quantitative measurements of fluxes,
sources, and sinks of atmospheric CO2 and CH4, and
develop forecasts for future trends.
U.S. NACP Approach
Observations
Dynamic Maps
Model-Data
Fusion
Decision
Support
Experiments
Diagnostic
Models
Predictive
Models
Observations & Experiments  Science Results  Estimates-Uncertainties
Multiple-Scale Observations and Experiments
1000 km
Up-scaling
10 km
Prediction
ha
m
µm
Downscaling
Verification
NACP Data Assimilation Framework
Mid-Continent Geographic Domain
USDA Natural Resources
Conservation Service
(NRCS) Major Land
Resource Areas
summarize distributions of
climatic conditions and
soil characteristics across
the region.
Mid-Continent Intensive Study
• Develop optimized sampling schemes for field and atmospheric
measurements to efficiently monitor regional carbon stocks and fluxes.
• Use top-down approaches to provide a region-level estimate of net
carbon fluxes during short periods (weeks) with an accuracy of 10% by
increasing spatial and temporal coverage of atmospheric measurements
and by enabling improvements in the parameterization of
transport/mixing processes in the lower atmosphere.
• Use a variety of bottom-up techniques to provide daily to annual
estimates of carbon stocks and fluxes over a region by improving
process model structure and parameterization. A hierarchy of field and
remote sensing observations should be used for model testing,
development of data assimilation techniques, and model
parameterization.
• Compare the top-down and bottom-up approaches and iteratively
improve the independent approaches on daily to annual time scales.
• Produce carbon stock and flux maps at various levels of spatial and
temporal detail, and compare the results of the top-down and bottom-up
approaches to diagnose methods.
Data Assimilation Approaches – Savanna Systems
Hyperspectral
MISR
AMSR
Climate
Products
(eg Silo)
Advanced Microwave
Scanning Radiometer
AVHRR
SRTM
Data
Shuttle Radar
Topographic Mission
Ground &
atm obs
Landsat
mosaic
Model-Data
assimilation
CSIRO BRS CRCGA
Grazing
Parameters
Forward model
ERS-2 ATSR Fire
1995 - 2002
MODIS cluster
12 Terabyte
16 processor
0.03
0.02
0.01
0.00
-0.01
-0.02
-0.03
Respiration (tC ha-1 d-1)
MODIS
NBAR
LST
Albedo
EVI/NDVI
(1km, 500m, 250m)
Production (tC ha-1 d-1)
MODIS
Compare
0.01
0.00
-0.01
-0.02
0
500
1000
1500
time (day since start of period)
Dynamics
LAI,
fPAR,
GPP,
NPP
Stocks
TOPS
Observations to Decision Support