HR: 16:15h
AN: A24C-02    [Abstracts]
TI: Contribution of the NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Program to the Northern Eurasia Partnership Initiative (NEESPI)
AU: * Gutman, G
EM: ggutman@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Headquarters, 300 E Street, Washington, DC 20546 United States
AB: Northern Eurasia - a geographic area, which includes the territory of the Former Soviet Union, northern China and Mongolia, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe - has recently become a study area of an international, interagency program NEESPI (Northern Eurasia Partnership Initiative, http://neespi.gsfc.nasa.gov). NASA is currently the NEESPI major partner, with several NASA programs contributing to this initiative. Among them is the Land-Cover/Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Program. This talk will discuss the LCLUC Program contribution to the NEESPI, in particular the start-up projects on Carbon Cycle science studies. The area of Northern Eurasia plays a major role in the global carbon budget merely due to its vast territory covered by the boreal forests and peat lands. Also, climate warming is most pronounced in this geographic area with temperature rise expected to be the greatest over the globe. This, in turn, induces natural terrestrial processes, especially in permafrost areas, to release more carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. As far as the LCLUC processes are concerned, northern Eurasia is specifically interesting due to the dramatic socio-economic shifts throughout this region during the last decade. The rapid land use changes create the possibility for large and significant biological and climatic feedbacks in this region that could be of global importance. Regionally, significant changes in land use coupled with climate change may affect various sectors, including forestry, costal zone and agricultural systems. Additionally, these processes may have direct impacts on the society, including human health issues. This talk will present the use of NASA remote sensing data in reducing uncertainties in regional carbon budget estimates in studies of northern Eurasia. Current and planned research on detection, monitoring and impacts of changes in land cover and land use in northern Eurasia will be discussed.
UR: http://neespi.gsfc.nasa.gov; http://lcluc.gsfc.nasa.gov
DE: 9320 Asia
DE: 9335 Europe
DE: 6061 Remote sensing
DE: 6062 Satellites
DE: 0315 Biosphere/atmosphere interactions
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting