The overall goal of this project is to define the degree to which combining information from two recent and complementary NASA satellite sensors provide, 1. Quantitative and compelling information…

This is a $145,624 grant awarded by NASA's Shared Services Center to the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) for a research project to improve understanding of the global carbon cycle using data from NASA's SMAP and OCO-2 satellite missions. The overall goal is to leverage these complementary satellite observations to provide quantitative insights on ecosystem functioning, enable earlier detection and prediction of carbon cycle-climate feedbacks, and reconcile top-down and bottom-up carbon flux estimates. The project will assess the value of SMAP's soil moisture and freeze/thaw data for improving carbon exchange estimates, particularly in northern high latitude regions, and evaluate how SMAP can help identify drought impacts on ecosystem productivity. This grant does not have a set-aside designation, reflecting USRA's status as a large nonprofit research organization that frequently partners with NASA and other federal agencies on scientific research and technology development projects.

The overall goal of this project is to define the degree to which combining information from two recent and complementary NASA satellite sensors provide, 1. Quantitative and compelling information on ecosystem functioning and structure; 2. Early warning and prediction capability for carbon cycleclimate feedbacks, and 3. Improvements in our ability to reconcile carbon flux estimates from a bottom up and top down perspective. We will use early mission data from both smap and OCO2 to make preliminary estimates that will become more mature as longer time series accumulate. Specific objectives and steps targeted to address this overall goal are as follows. 1. Assess the benefit of smap derived freeze or thaw and soil moisture state in improving estimates of ecosystem carbon exchange and in explaining observed trends in atmospheric CO2 variability in the northern high latitudes. 2. Utilize smap soil moisture information to identify drought or water stress events and to evaluate representation of ecosystem productivity within land surface models during such events. 3. Reconcile bottom up and top down estimates of terrestrial carbon fluxes at a variety of spatial and temporal scales