Eos, Vol. 95, No. 29, 22 July 2014
Meeting Synthesizing Remote Sensing Data on the Carbon and Water Cycles The Coupled Carbon and Water Cycles Workshop; Pasadena, California, 18–19 March 2014
PAGE 265 This year two of NASA's Earth missions, Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO‐2; http:// oco.jpl.nasa.gov) and Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP; http://smap.jpl.nasa.gov), will collect data relating to water and carbon cycles at unprecedented spatial and temporal resolutions. Synthesizing these data provides unique opportunities for understanding interactions, patterns, underlying processes, and variability among climate, carbon, and hydrologic cycles. In March, 52 experts from a variety of disciplines convened in Pasadena, Calif., for the Coupled Carbon and Water Cycles workshop (http://climatesciences.jpl.nasa. gov/workshop/coupled‐carbon‐water), co‐ organized by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Climate Science Center and Carbon Climate Initiative. The workshop explored potential synergism between OCO‐2 and SMAP to answer important questions about the carbon and water cycles. Participants developed the idea of a virtual mission using observations from the two, extending them through new
data products, modeling, and data fusion techniques. The workshop consisted of presentations relating to existing research and data products for the SMAP and OCO‐2 missions, followed by discussions. Culminating from the discussions were overarching scientific questions addressing the spatial and temporal links among carbon and hydrologic cycles and the cryosphere, and the mechanistic understanding of these linkages. Three specific questions addressed were, How will changes to the global water cycle affect the terrestrial carbon cycle? How will changes in the cryosphere affect the carbon cycle? And what are dominant ecological processes that drive interactions among water, climate, and carbon? Participants developed a list of observations, measurements, and fused data products required for the virtual mission encompassing field and airborne campaigns, modeling efforts, and other useful satellite data. Discussions also produced a set of outcomes resulting in current efforts to develop a virtual mission. One of the outcomes will
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be a detailed journal article with a synthesis of workshop discussions, including scientific questions, observables, data products, and calibration/validation activities. Another is a fused data product from OCO‐2 and SMAP that links carbon exchange, water stress, and freeze‐thaw. The fused data product will enable researchers and other interested parties to address many of the questions that arose during the workshop. The clear demand to fill knowledge gaps and provide more large‐scale observational constraints on global predictive climate and carbon models was highlighted during the workshop. A virtual mission capitalizing on SMAP–OCO‐2 synergy will provide desired information, at the required scales, for an interdisciplinary scientific investigation of climate, carbon, and hydrologic sciences, with many applications anticipated for management and policy. A virtual mission focusing on the synergy between SMAP and OCO‐2 is in demand, feasible, and cost‐effective, as it uses existing, developed, and funded missions but generates new requirements for data products and calibration/validation beyond the basic ones needed for each mission separately. We are grateful to the California Institute of Technology's Keck Institute for Space Studies for sponsoring and hosting the workshop, as well as to Amber Jenkins, Martha Farfan, and Debbie Shimoda for organizing.
—E. NATASHA STAVROS, SU-JONG JEONG, and ANTHONY BLOOM, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; email:
[email protected]
