HR: 14:15h
AN: B43A-02    [Abstracts]
TI: BIOGEOGRAPHY, CLOUD BASE HEIGHTS AND CLOUD IMMERSION IN TROPICAL MONTANE CLOUD FORESTS
AU: * Welch, R M
EM: welch@nsstc.uah.edu
AF: Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama in Huntsville NSSTC, Huntsville, AL 35805, United States
AU: Asefi, S
EM: asefi@nsstc.uah.edu
AF: Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama in Huntsville NSSTC, Huntsville, AL 35805, United States
AU: Zeng, J
EM: Jian.Zeng@noaa.gov
AF: Center for Satellite Applications and Research, NOAA/NESDIS, Camp Springs, MD 20746, United States
AU: Nair, U S
EM: Nair@nsstc.uah.edu
AF: Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama in Huntsville NSSTC, Huntsville, AL 35805, United States
AU: Lawton, R O
EM: lawtonr@email.uah.edu
AF: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899, United States
AU: Ray, D K
EM: dkray@purdue.edu
AF: Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, United States
AU: Han, Q
EM: han@nsstc.uah.edu
AF: Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama in Huntsville NSSTC, Huntsville, AL 35805, United States
AU: Manoharan, V S
EM: vsmano@nsstc.uah.edu
AF: Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama in Huntsville NSSTC, Huntsville, AL 35805, United States
AB: Tropical Montane Cloud Forests (TMCFs) are ecosystems characterized by frequent and prolonged immersion within orographic clouds. TMCFs often lie at the core of the biological hotspots, areas of high biodiversity, whose conservation is necessary to ensure the preservation of a significant amount of the plant and animal species in the world. TMCFs support islands of endemism dependent on cloud water interception that are extremely susceptible to environmental and climatic changes at regional or global scales. Due to the ecological and hydrological importance of TMCFs it is important to understand the biogeographical distribution of these ecosystems. The best current list of TMCFs is a global atlas compiled by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). However, this list is incomplete, and it does not provide information on cloud immersion, which is the defining characteristic of TMCFs and sorely needed for ecological and hydrological studies. The present study utilizes MODIS satellite data both to determine orographic cloud base heights and then to quantify cloud immersion statistics over TMCFs. Results are validated from surface measurements over Northern Costa Rica for the month of March 2003. Cloud base heights are retrieved with approximately 80m accuracy, as determined at Monteverde, Costa Rica. Cloud immersion derived from MODIS data is also compared to an independent cloud immersion dataset created using a combination of GOES satellite data and RAMS model simulations. Comparison against known locations of cloud forests in Northern Costa Rica shows that the MODIS-derived cloud immersion maps successfully identify these cloud forest locations, including those not included in the UNEP data set. Results also will be shown for cloud immersion in Hawaii. The procedure appears to be ready for global mapping.
DE: 0410 Biodiversity
DE: 0480 Remote sensing
DE: 1632 Land cover change
DE: 1813 Eco-hydrology
DE: 1855 Remote sensing (1640)
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly