ecocast - Earth System Science Research Using Data and Products from the Earth Observing System (EOS)

Earth System Science Research Using Data and Products from the Earth Observing System (EOS)

Prognostic/Diagnostic analysis of land surface processes using ecosystem modeling and TERRA/AQUA products

The current generation of EOS satellites provides an unprecedented capability for monitoring the biosphere. Over one hundred products are produced regularly characterizing the changes over land, atmosphere and the oceans. Identifying precursors to ecosystem states and disturbance and forecasting important events in the biosphere, however, would realize higher socio-economic impacts. To facilitate biospheric forecasting, we developed and implemented the Terrestrial Observation and Prediction System (TOPS) over the conterminous U.S. TOPS integrates ecosystem models with gridded surface climate, weather/climate forecasts, satellite observations of leaf area index (LAI) and ancillary data to predict a variety of terrestrial ecosystem processes. In this research, we seek to extend the capabilities of TOPS by ingesting nearly all land products to:

1) Evaluate the spatial and temporal consistency of information content across the land product suite.

2) Verify TOPS predictions of water (snow cover, soil moisture, evapotranspiration) and carbon (phenology, gross primary production, net primary production) cycles with TERRA/AQUA products and assess seasonal and spatial bias in the predictions.

3) Develop prototype forecasts of ecosystem growing season dynamics over the western United States including phenological events, drought and fire potential. Our long-term goal is to extend the prognosis of terrestrial ecosystems to progressively longer time scales and continuously assess their reliability using TERRA/AQUA products.

Via this website, we will soon deliver daily 1km climate driving variables (temperature, vapor pressure deficit, solar radiation and precipitation), modeled fields of soil moisture, snow cover, evapotranspiration, vegetation stress, gross primary production and annual net primary production along with spatially consistent EOS products every 8 days. We believe such a spatially and temporally consistent database of downloadable biospheric conditions would serve both research and applications communities.

Partner Institutions

U.S. Forest Service
Utah State University
University of Montana

Support

Funding for this research is provided by the NASA Earth Science Enterprise.

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