NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting, La Jolla: 30 April – 2 May, 2013

NASA Terrestrial EcologyNew Directions Working Group

Andrew Elmore University of Maryland

Josef Kellndorfer Woods Hole Research Center

Marcy Litvak University of New Mexico

Paul Moorcroft Harvard University

Doug Morton Goddard Space Flight Center

Paul Siqueira University of Massachusetts

NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting, La Jolla: 30 April – 2 May, 2013

General Information

Purpose:

“Identify what is new, compelling and important in terrestrial ecology (non-carbon) that can be significantly informed or advanced using remote sensing capabilities.”

Approach:

In February we had a number of discussions to brain storm about topics and come up with a candidate list that would lead to further discussion for this science team meeting.

A four page white paper that summarizes these discussions can be found at the workshop website under the breakout session:

Future Directions for NASA TE Non-Carbon Ecological Research

What follows is a brief, pictorial overview of some of those topics discussed. Those interested in continuing the discussion please come to the breakout meeting at 3 pm.

NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting, La Jolla: 30 April – 2 May, 2013

Bulletted list of focus areas

•Ecosystem function for land-water-atmosphere coupling, leveraging capabilities with GRACE, SMAP, SWOT, etc.

•Adaptation of ecosytems functions and services to climate change

•The growing role of management for ecosystem functions in human-dominated ecosystems

•On the evolution of remote sensing science to support Terrestrial Ecology science

•(likely many others)

NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting, La Jolla: 30 April – 2 May, 2013

Ground water and terrestrial ecosystems interaction

NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting, La Jolla: 30 April – 2 May, 2013

Land-water-atmosphere coupling

GRACE-2

SWOT

GPM

SMAP

Severe drought in Amazon, Saatchi, et al., PNAS 2012

NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting, La Jolla: 30 April – 2 May, 2013

Dry Lake sediments are globally important sources of dust

Elmore et al. (2008) Journal of Arid Environments

NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting, La Jolla: 30 April – 2 May, 2013

Sensitivity of central plain grasslands to precipitation variability

Woodland forests

Craine et al. (2012) PNAS

NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting, La Jolla: 30 April – 2 May, 2013

Mapping of ecological functions through biogeochemistry

Ollinger et al., PNAS, 2008

Combined Hyperion and AVIRIS data for measuring canopy nitrogen and photosynthetic capacity

NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting, La Jolla: 30 April – 2 May, 2013

Status Quo and Changes of Ecosystem Functions and Services

Varga & Asner, Ecol. Appl., 2008

•Combined lidar and hyperspectral observations used for mapping fuel

•Hyperspectral applications for monitoring and predicting

invasive species

Pontius et al., RSE , 2005

NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting, La Jolla: 30 April – 2 May, 2013

Remote Sensing Science

models + remote sensing = scaling

NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting, La Jolla: 30 April – 2 May, 2013

Remote Sensing Science

multitemporal

multisensor

•Due to the complex and integrated nature of Terrestrial Ecology, the demands on the variety and temporal coverage of remote sensing data are very high

•There is a continuing need for integrating data sets and connecting them to the targets of intererest

•With the increase in computing power, data storage and sensor types, there is a healthy appetite for increasing the complexity of data analysis and interpretation

M. Schmidt et al.,Scarth et al, 2013

HH/HV/FPC

NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting, La Jolla: 30 April – 2 May, 2013

Where we are going next