FY2004 Research Products

Spatial and temporal estimation of greenhouse gas budget by synthesis of satellite and field observations

  • PI: Dr. Yoshinobu Harazono
  • Project title: Spatial and Temporal Estimation of Greenhouse Gas Budget by Synthesis of Satellite and Field Observation

Remote sensing techniques in visual to middle infrared are used to detect changes of land surface, such as vegetation types in the snow-covered area, and ground water conditions. This has been applied to derive vegetation vigor (Gammon et al., 2001; Kushida et al., 2004). Meanwhile, ground truth observations are required to verify the methodology and to obtain accurate estimation of land cover changes.

Greenhouse gas flux observations have been conducted at wet tundra site near Barrow, and at a taiga vegetation site near Fairbanks to estimate the budget of CO2 and CH4 flux under recent climate warming conditions. Those near Barrow have been conducted as collaborations with the Global Change Research Group, San Diego State University (SDSU) and the National Institute for Agro-Environmental Science (NIAES) since 1999. Those at the taiga vegetation site near Fairbanks have been conducted since 2002. Kushida et al.(2004) conducted ground truth observations along the Alaska transect from Fairbanks to the north slope of the Brooks Range in the past several summers.

Field studies of the Alaska transect were conducted in June 2004. Tower base flux observations at Fairbanks/Barrow were conducted in the summer of 2004. Current goals are as follows:

  1. Detection and estimation of the spatial and seasonal conditions of vegetation (sprout, develop, senescence and snow cover) through remote sensing.
  2. Justification of model parameters for temporal and large-scale flux through continuous observations of CO2 and CH4 at barrow (tundra) and Fairbanks (taiga).
  3. Derivation of the spatial pattern of the CH4 budget by analysis of the soil map, vegetation map, satellite data, and data from tower flux observations.

Results and estimations of CH4 flux from the synthesis of satellite remote sensing and field observations at Barrow and Fairbanks are underway with participating Japanese researchers and graduate students. Data collection is in progress with the project participant Toru Iwata (Okayama University).

Fig 1a
 Figure 1(b)
Figure 2
Figure 1. Flux observation site at Barrow, Alaska and the measured seasonal trend/variations of CH4 flux (black) and soil temperature (blue, 10cm in depth) in the growing seasons from 1999 to 2001 (copyright, Y. Harazono; Fig. 1B copyright, Y. Harazono, M Mano and A. Miyata). Figure 2. The spectra of sphagnum moss (orange) feather moss (green) and lichen (blue) at black spruce forest floor, which is applied to estimate Net Primary Production (NPP) and Net Ecosystem Production (NEP): Three lines of each color indicate averages (N=10) with their standard deviations [from Kushida et al. 2004, reuse permission grand by J. Geophys. Res.]

 

Figure 3A
Figure 3A. Vegetation distribution of Alaska taiga around Fairbanks for CH4 flux estimation study (copyright, Y Harazono and K. Kushida). Figure 3B. Distribution of potential CH4 flux estimated from tower flux observation data, NEP, and satellite images, excluding CH4-oxidation effect of vegetation (copyright, Y. Harazono and K. Kushida).

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