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Exploring the role of global terrestrial ecosystem in the climate-carbon cycle interactions: An Integrated modeling and remote sensing approach

Robert E. Dickinson, Georgia Institute of Technology, robted@eas.gatech.edu (Presenting)
Liming Zhou, Georgia Institute of Technology, lmzhou@eas.gatech.edu
Yuhong Tian, Georgia Institute of Technology, yuhong.tian@eas.gatech.edu

Coupled climate-carbon system models constrained by remote sensing products provide important means to address how the terrestrial ecosystem affects and reacts to changing climate and global carbon cycle. However, our current capability is still limited because of inadequately developed modeling and remote sensing data approaches. Our current and past NASA projects have made critical progresses in improving satellite data representation of global terrestrial properties and developing new model schemes for the merge of satellite data and climate models. We propose to implement these progresses to explore various terrestrial biophysical coupling mechanisms that contribute to the trajectory of atmospheric carbon, and to develop a data assimilation system that allows direct inference of vegetation dynamical properties from remote sensed radiation fluxes in weather and climate prediction. The proposed work will be conducted using NASA MODIS products and the modeling framework of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). Our scientific objectives are to substantially advance modeling of the carbon cycle and the climate and to enhance the utilization of satellite global measurements for understanding the role of global terrestrial ecosystem in climate-carbon cycle interactions.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Abstract ID: 45

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