Bridging Spatial Scales Using Phenological Measurements to Improve Understanding of Autumn Atmosphere-Biosphere Interactions

叶片衰老的时间（着色和随后的秋天;即，在秋季期间，气候变化（如物候学）对中纬度陆地表面和低层大气之间的能量和碳交换有潜在的巨大影响。 然而，在植物群落水平上的秋季物候时间的空间变化还没有得到广泛的测量或分析，并没有很好地了解潜在的环境驱动因素。因此，详细的秋季物候数据提供了相当大的机会，评估精确的放大测量到更大的地区或缩小尺度的信息，从大气环流模型的关键的植被水平的空间变化。 在这个项目中，将在群落水平上测量和分析秋季物候数据的空间变异性，并与小气候、碳通量和遥感测量进行比较，总体目标是提高从大陆到全球尺度的能量/碳通量估计的准确性。这个项目将解决对气候学、植物生理学、生态学、和遥感。 秋季物候在空间和时间上的变化的性质以前没有记录在一个大的区域，并结合支持测量。 从最近的研究结果强烈表明，了解立场水平（~50 × 50米）的空间格局秋季植物物候发展（和驱动它们的环境过程）将提供关键的知识，需要改善景观水平的估计碳积累在整个生长季节结合现有的数据春季物候。 该项目产生的空间集中的物候措施将为未来的近地表和卫星遥感研究提供秋季植物发育和生长的记录，包括过去没有记录的物种差异、空间变异和精确的事件时间。 总的来说，该项目的成果将有助于更好地了解气候变化对生物圈的影响，这将增加对未来潜在变化的了解，并可能有助于更好地规划预期森林植被变化的社会影响。

The timing of leaf senescence (coloring and subsequent fall; i.e., phenology) during autumn has potentially large impacts on energy and carbon exchange between mid-latitude land surfaces and the lower atmosphere. However, spatial variations in autumn phenological timing at the plant community level have not been widely measured or analyzed, and underlying environmental drivers are not well understood. Thus, detailed autumn phenological data offer considerable opportunities for assessing landscape-level spatial variations crucial for accurate scaling-up measurements to larger areas or downscaling information from atmospheric general circulation models. In this project, spatial variability of autumn phenological data will be measured and analyzed at the community level, compared to microclimatic, carbon flux, and remote sensing measurements, with an overall goal of contributing to increased accuracy of energy/carbon flux estimates at continental to global scales.This project will address issues that are significant for advancement across the fields of climatology, plant physiology, ecology, and remote sensing. The nature of autumn phenological variability in space and time has not been previously recorded over a large area and combined with supporting measurements. Results from recent studies strongly suggest that understanding stand-level (~50 x 50 m) spatial patterns of autumn plant phenological development (and the environmental processes that drive them) will provide key knowledge needed to improve landscape level estimates of carbon accumulation across the entire growing season when combined with existing data for spring phenology. The spatially concentrated phenological measures produced by this project will provide future near-surface and satellite-derived remote sensing studies with a record of autumn plant development and growth involving species differences, spatial variability, and precise event timing that has not been recorded in the past. Overall, the results of this project will contribute to better understanding of the impacts of climate change on the biosphere, which will increase knowledge of potential future changes, and may allow for better planning relative to societal impacts of anticipated forest vegetation change.