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| Science @ CIRES > Science Reviews > NOAA Science Review, 2002 |
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Abstracts: 6 Center for The Study of Earth from Space (CSES)Alexander F.H. Goetz The Center for the Study of Earth from Space (CSES) brings together a diverse set of disciplines to study the Earth and its global systems through use of the tools of remote sensing, and its members are dedicated to teaching these tools to the next generation of Earth scientists. In ecosystems, our approach involves extensive fieldwork, the development of methodologies to characterize temporal and spatial heterogeneity in natural ecosystems via remote sensing, and ultimately the incorporation of these data in landscape and ecosystem simulation models. Current projects address the following specific questions: (i) How do shifts in vegetation structural types (grassland/shrubland) affect the dynamics of carbon and nitrogen on a regional scale? (ii) How do natural (windthrow) and anthropogenic (nitrogen deposition) disturbances influence biogeochemical cycling within montane forests, and what are the subsequent responses to acute versus chronic disturbance? (iii) What are the integrated effects of urban/surburban development on carbon sequestration, phenology and aboveground net primary productivity within Colorado Front Range; (iv) Does the structure of a biome-level ecotone reflect population-level processes and how does land use influence that structure under directional climate change? In the cryosphere, understanding the Greenland ice sheet climate and melt characteristics is critical to the assessment of ice sheet mass balance and the interpretation of the mass balance observations. Because of the positive albedo feedback associated with snow melt and the fact that wet snow absorbs as much as three times more incident solar energy than dry, ice sheet melt characteristics play a major role in the energy and mass exchanges at the ice sheet surface. Remotes sensing data from active and passive microwave, in combination with in situ meteorological data will be shown to assess the daily, monthly, annual and decadal melt extent of the ice sheet during summer months. Examples will include:
QuikScat radar backsatter time series SSM/I and SMMR passive microwave time series Greenland Climate network meteorological data In land cover and soil properties investigations we have been using a Landsat time series coupled with climate data and potential vegetation models to predict the potential reactivation of sandy rangeland soils in the High Plains under different drought conditions. We are also studying the problem of swelling soils along the Front Range and developing spectroscopic techniques to measure the swell potential for soils, possibly decreasing the time to detect problems from a week to seconds. This result would be a boon to the geotechnical profession and possibly forestall remediation in new construction. |
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