HR: 14:10h
AN: GC53B-03 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: Monitoring Requirements and Methods for Greenhouse Gas Management and Climate Change Detection
AU: * Birdsey, R
EM: rbirdsey@fs.fed.us
AF: US Forest Service, 11 Campus Blvd Suite 200, Newtown Square, PA 19073,
AU: Pan, Y
EM: ypan@fs.fed.us
AF: US Forest Service, 11 Campus Blvd Suite 200, Newtown Square, PA 19073,
AU: Clark, K
EM: kennethclark@fs.fed.us
AF: US Forest Service, 11 Campus Blvd Suite 200, Newtown Square, PA 19073,
AU: Hom, J
EM: jhom@fs.fed.us
AF: US Forest Service, 11 Campus Blvd Suite 200, Newtown Square, PA 19073,
AB: Climate change policy and management require monitoring data to support decision making. Availability of good data about past trends, and projections based on reasonable assumptions and models, can support debate about response options and avoid the pitfall of arguing about information quality. A hierarchical or multi-tier approach to environmental monitoring has been used efficiently for many decades, and can be linked with experiments and process modeling to improve natural resource assessments. Consideration of spatial and temporal scale can align data requirements with the information needed to facilitate separation of causal factors, e.g., factoring out natural effects from human-induced effects on the carbon cycle. Here we describe a 3-tier integrated monitoring hierarchy: intensive process-level monitoring, landscape-scale monitoring, and regional monitoring. Information at each tier may be used independently or integrated across tiers. Methods to integrate information include statistical techniques for diagnostic analysis, and ecosystem models for prognostic analysis. We illustrate the methods and results for each tier using data and analyses for the Pinelands Management Area of New Jersey, a reserved area of 360,000 ha. A cluster of flux towers and associated intensive-site measurements comprises the process monitoring. A network of biometric monitoring sites represents the landscape conditions, and forest inventory with remote sensing is used to characterize the region. This approach is capable of closing the regional carbon budget, i.e., accounting for all exchanges of carbon between the land, atmosphere, and ocean. It is also an excellent platform for monitoring the effects of climate change and factoring out different effects -- the system was designed to provide information about dangerous fire weather and identify needs to manage wildfire fuels. The New Jersey Pinelands site is part of a national network of multi-scale monitoring sites that can meet many of the emerging needs for greenhouse gas management and climate change detection.
DE: 0428 Carbon cycling (4806)
DE: 0439 Ecosystems, structure and dynamics (4815)
DE: 1615 Biogeochemical cycles, processes, and modeling (0412, 0414, 0793, 4805, 4912)
DE: 1630 Impacts of global change (1225)
DE: 1631 Land/atmosphere interactions (1218, 1843, 3322)
SC: Global Environmental Change [GC]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting