Ecological Research Aircraft with Remote Sensing and Flux Instrumentation

这项提议是购买并装备一架超轻型飞机(RAS S-12 Airaile)，配备遥感仪器(如探地雷达、红外数字多光谱相机、高光谱辐射计和高速真伪彩色视频)、净二氧化碳、水蒸汽、能量平衡传感器(NOAA-ATDD移动通量平台)和气象传感器。该仪器将为用户提供北极冻土带和半干旱灌丛和林地生态系统的综合生态生理和生物物理数据，并建立在所有拥有由NSF(OPP)和其他机构(如美国能源部、NIGEC、EPRI和USGS)赞助的持续生态系统研究计划的用户现有研究成果的基础上。通过在一架飞机上结合仪器和研究需求，将建立一个专门的、可靠的综合数据收集系统。这架飞机满足了来自几所大学和机构的一组研究人员的迫切需求，他们致力于研究全球变化的影响，以及北极和美国西南部的生态系统和景观过程。预计的生态因素，如即将到来的气候变化和大气中二氧化碳和其他温室气体浓度的增加，有可能改变全球生态系统的结构和功能。这些区域和全球现象突显了大规模、以过程为基础的研究的重要性。例如，尽管最近进行了许多基于过程的碳平衡研究，但由于无法直接评估按比例进行的区域水平的估计，这些主要是地块水平的生态系统碳交换估计的扩展受到了阻碍。直接评估区域碳平衡和对生态系统碳平衡的生物物理控制的技术最近已经成为可能。飞机平台已被广泛用于最近确定陆地生态系统净二氧化碳、H20和能量交换的倡议(FIFE、ABLE 3 A、BOREAS和NSF-LAII)，当与遥感仪器相联系时，在理解地表特征和生态系统C交换之间的空间反馈方面取得了重大进展。

This proposal is to purchase and equip a very-light aircraft (RANS S-12 Airaile) with remote sensing instruments (e.g. ground penetrating radar, infrared digital multispectral camera, hyperspectral radiometer, and high-speed true and false color video), net CO2, H2O vapor, energy balance sensors (NOAA-ATDD Mobile Flux Platform), and meteorological sensors. This instrumentation will provide users with integrated ecophysiological and biophysical data for arctic tundra and semi-arid shrubland and woodland ecosystems, and builds on existing research efforts by all users who have ongoing ecosystem research programs sponsored by NSF (OPP) and others (e.g. DOE, NIGEC, EPRI, and USGS). By combining instruments and research needs on a single aircraft, a dedicated reliable system for integrated data collection will be established. This aircraft fills a critical need of a group of researchers from several universities and agencies working on the effects of global change and on ecosystem and landscape processes in the arctic and southwest US. Projected ecological factors, such as impending climate change and increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, have the potential to alter global ecosystem structure and function. These regional and global phenomena highlight the importance of large-scale, process-based research. For example, although much process-based C balance research has recently been conducted, the challenges of scaling these predominantly plot-level estimates of ecosystem C exchange has been hampered by the inability to directly assess the scaled, regional-level estimates. The technology for directly assessing regional C balance and the biophysical controls on ecosystem C balance has recently become available. Aircraft platforms have been used extensively in recent initiatives to determine net CO2, H20, and energy exchange of terrestrial ecosystems (FIFE, ABLE 3 A, BOREAS, and NSF-LAII), and when linked with remote sensing instrument ation, significant progress has been made in understanding spatial feed backs between surface features and ecosystem C exchange.