Climate Change Impacts to the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle: Observations with Satellite Remote Sensing

Kyle McDonald Principal Scientist Water and Carbon Cycles Group Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology

JPL Public Forum

24 October 2009
Copyright 2009 California Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship acknowledged.

Primary Climate Controls to Vegetation Growth

Temperature

Sunlight

Water

Nemani et al., Science, 2003

Spatial Patterns of Global Warming

2011-2030

2046-2065

2080-2099

(Source: IPCC, 2007)

Temperature (oC)

Early Century

Mid-Century

Late Century

Satellite Remote Sensing of Vegetation Growth and Freeze-Thaw Cycles

Optical-IR Sensors
(Vegetation greenness and productivity)

Active and Passive Microwave Sensors

(freeze-thaw state, moisture, growing season length) NOAA Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) ALOS PALSAR

NOAA AVHRR

MODIS

1982 -Present

2000 -Present
2006 Present 1987 Present

MODIS Global Vegetation Productivity for 2003

Deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest

Pan-Arctic Thaw Timing Observed with SSM/I

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

Thaw Day

Trend Toward Earlier Springtime Thaw in the Arctic

Methane from the Arctic

Methane (CH4) comes from a variety of sources in the Arctic. These include emissions generated by microbes in thawing permafrost soils, from lakes and ponds, and from methane hydrates.
Sources: ACIA 2004, ACIA 2005, UNEP Year Book 2008

University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Katey Walter lights a pocket of methane on a thermokarst lake in Siberia in March of 2007. Igniting the gas is a way to demonstrate, in the field, that it contains methane. Photo by Zergey Zimov.

Wetlands Map of Alaska Wetlands Map of Alaska

Whitcomb, Moghaddam, McDonald, Kellndorfer, and Podest, Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, 2009

Station Fire, 2009

Tundra Fire

Sagwon, Alaska, 2007

Photo by Kyle McDonald

INCREASING WILDFIRE IN CANADA

Gillette et al 2004

Wildfires accelerate 1970 2003 with early snowmelt, longer, drier summers

Westerling et al Science 2006, Running, Science 2006

SMAP Mission for Freeze-Thaw and Moisture