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Climatology

An Overview of Terra Mission Results Related to the Carbon Cycle

By Marc L. Imhoff, Robert Wolfe, David J. Diner, Mark Chopping, Ralph Kahn, Vincent Salomonson, John Gille, James Drummond, David Edwards, Norm Loeb, Bruce Wielicki, Michael Abrams, Bjorn Eng, Si-Chee Tsay and K. Jon Ranson, NASA's and Goddard Space Flight Center NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology Montclair State University University of Utah National Center for Atmospheric Research Dalhousie University NASA's Langley Research Center (February 2009)


Section: Climatology

Subjects: Climatology, Earth Observation, Geography.

Key Topics: remote sensing, modeling, land cover and land use change, biogeochemical cycles, flows, fluxes.

Abstract

Launched in December 1999 as the Earth Observing System's flagship observatory, the Terra Mission (formerly EOS AM-1) carries a suite of five instruments that collect comprehensive global measurements of earth's atmosphere, cryosphere, lands, and oceans. One of the mission's science goals is the collection of data that will enable a better quantitative understanding of earth's carbon cycle through direct observation of atmospheric constituents and the provision of spatially explicit information about biophysical surface properties useful for modeling. In this article, highlights of the mission's use of five main instruments (ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS, and MOPITT) to address various aspects of the carbon cycle are reviewed, using examples of earth's photosynthetic production on land, vegetation structure and ecosystem response, and the extent and frequency of fires and their contribution of aerosols and carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00183.x

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