Challenges in integrating Earth observations
Brian Johnson
National Snow & Ice Data Center, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences
Date and time:
Friday, September 11, 2015 - 3:00pm
Location:
ECCR 245
Abstract:
Carbon plays a central role in both climate and in the Earth’s biosphere. The uptake of carbon dioxide by terrestrial ecosystems significantly influences the global carbon budget. Interactions between the atmosphere and biosphere involve a variety of biotic and environmental processes occurring over a range of temporal and spatial scales. Satellites provide an important global view but often cannot resolve important fine spatial scale or dynamic processes. This talk will touch on the importance of scale in environmental processes and some of the inherent challenges in integrating Earth observations to understand and predict ecosystem response to climate and land use changes, and to disturbances like wildfires or drought.
New approaches to visualizing and examining the large amount of satellite observations and other geospatial information, like CU’s new Earth Lab initiative, will help to accelerate scientific discovery and generate deeper insights about the pace and pattern of global environmental change through integration of observations from satellites, aircraft and ground-based platforms. In addition, advances in sensor technologies, commercial satellite imaging, and unmanned aircraft systems, and the development of data assimilation techniques will enable new ways to fill observational gaps and extend site-based and field data to areas not directly sampled.