CAREER: Observation-Driven Mapping of the Linkages between the Terrestrial Water, Energy and Carbon Cycles

陆地、生物圈和大气之间的水、能量和碳的交换在地球气候中起着关键作用。水、能源和碳循环的陆地或陆地部分密切相关，并以协调的方式运作。例如，大气中二氧化碳的增加改变了植被生物量的数量，从而改变了生态系统的光合作用和蒸腾作用（因此，热交换）速率。水文、生态和气候模型中使用的陆面模型需要精确地表示陆地循环之间的联系。由于缺乏对能够量化这些联系的关键变量的直接观察，这些模型的预测结果不确定。该项目利用土壤湿度、土壤温度和植被指数等地表状态测量的卫星信息，采用一种新的观测驱动方法，诊断和绘制区域尺度的联系。绘制不同季节、生态和环境条件之间的联系图，有助于了解陆地水、能源和碳循环如何在真实的世界中相互联系和运作。这个职业建议的教育目标是提高环境知识和促进科学发现的研究生，本科生和6- 12日预科学生在华盛顿DC地区。这项教育工作包括让当地学校的少数民族学生参与STEM领域，重点是气候和土地-大气相互作用。这项研究解决了目前的知识差距，在了解时空变化的陆-气相互作用/耦合。研究计划包括：（一）根据变分方法制定一个最新的框架，根据地表状态观测中所含的隐含信息，在一系列时间和空间尺度上诊断和绘制陆地水、能源和碳循环之间的联系;（ii）以点数制测试方法（现场，合成模拟）和大规模（美国大陆）（iii）通过绘制和研究不同生物群落之间的联系，扩大我们对陆地循环之间耦合的基本理解，回声水文区域，季节和环境条件。 观测驱动的周期之间的联系形式可用于指导改进陆面/地球系统模型的预测能力，从而改进对区域陆面通量、气候和气候预测的模拟。该研究方法和低阶逆模拟技术的发展，在这个建议是感兴趣的广泛的社区，包括物理学家，应用数学家，气象学家，气候科学家和水文学家。该教育计划利用地球仪（全球学习和观察，以造福环境）框架，使6-12名学生从华盛顿都会区在干，让他们参与活动，这将提高他们对陆地大气相互作用的理解。 我们将通过发展参与教师网络、在线资源以及项目评估和评价工具来确保该项目的长期可持续性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The exchange of water, energy, and carbon between the land, biosphere and atmosphere play a key role in the Earth’s climate. The terrestrial or land component of water, energy and carbon cycles are strongly linked and operate in a harmonized manner. For example, an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide modifies the amount of vegetation biomass, thus altering ecosystem photosynthesis and transpiration (hence, heat exchange) rates. Land Surface Models used in hydrologic, ecological and climate models require accurate representation of the links between terrestrial cycles. The lack of direct observation of key variables that can quantify these linkages result in uncertain projections from these models. Using satellite information on land surface state measurements of soil moisture, soil temperature and vegetation index, this project applies a novel observation-driven approach to diagnose and map the linkages at regional scale. Mapping the linkages across different seasons, ecological and environmental conditions advances understanding of how the terrestrial water, energy and carbon cycles are linked and operate in the real world. The educational goal of this CAREER proposal is to enhance environmental knowledge and promote scientific discovery on the part of graduate, undergraduate and 6-12th precollege students in the Washington DC area. This education effort includes engaging minority students from local schools in STEM fields with a focus on climate and land-atmosphere interaction. This research addresses the current knowledge gap in understanding the spatio-temporal variations of land-atmosphere interactions/couplings. The research plan includes (i) developing a state of the art framework based on a variational methodology to diagnose and map the linkages between the terrestrial water, energy and carbon cycles across a range of temporal and spatial scales from the implicit information contained in land surface state observations; (ii) testing the methodology at point scale (field site, synthetic simulations) and at large scale (Continental US) (iii) and expanding our fundamental understanding of the coupling between the terrestrial cycles by mapping and studying the linkages across different biomes, echo hydrological regions, seasons and environmental conditions. The observation-driven form of the linkages between the cycles can be used to guide improvements in the predictive capabilities of Land Surface/Earth System models and hence improve simulation of regional land surface fluxes, climate and climate projections. The research method and the low order inverse modeling techniques developed in this proposal is of interest to a broad community, including physicists, applied mathematicians, meteorologists, climate scientists and hydrologists. The educational plan leverages the GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) framework to engage 6-12 students from the DC metro area in STEM by engaging them in activities that will enhance their understanding of land atmosphere interaction. We will ensure long-term sustainability of this program by developing a network of participating teachers, online resources, and program assessment and evaluation tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.