The Global Carbon Cycle
Near-Term (Fiscal Year 2008) Plans

The Global Carbon Cycle

Overview

Recent Accomplishments

Near-Term Plans

Archived News Postings [June 2000 - July 2005]

Related Sites

Calls for Proposals

  CCSP / USGCRP Carbon Cycle Working Group Members

For long term plans, see Carbon Cycle Chapter of the Strategic Plan posted on web site of US Climate Change Science Program

Carbon Cycle Science Home Page

Past Accomplishments:

Fiscal Year 2000

Climate Change Science Program.  FY 2008 Scientific Research Budget by USGCRP Research Element

Advanced Carbon Models.

Research will continue to develop carbon cycle and coupled carbon-climate models that are more comprehensive in their treatment of significant carbon dynamics and drivers, including those involving or stemming from human activities. These advanced models will incorporate multiple, interacting factors, address time scales of decades to centuries, and integrate across spatial scales. Carbon data assimilation at both regional and continental scales will continue to integrate multiple data streams including fluxes by eddy-covariance methods, atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations using tower-based instruments, and aircraft and satellite remote-sensing observations. An important aspect of these integrated investigations is the potential to reveal expected drivers within the carbon cycle and climate system, and especially in those systems where sensitivities of carbon processes and stocks to climate change are high (e.g., Arctic and boreal systems). Modeling research focusing on the Southern Ocean and Antarctica will capitalize on existing and impending remote and in situ observations and will include synthesized data sets, existing models, and data assimilation techniques to advance the ability to quantify southern high- latitude sensitivities and variability. Significant advances are expected in regional and global carbon cycle modeling.

These activities will address Goals 2, 3, and 5 and Questions 7.1, 7.2, 7.4, and 7.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Atmospheric Monitoring.

Measurements of radiative trace species (including CO2 and CH4), started six years ago at Summit, Greenland, will continue, and measurements will be expanded to include tracers of carbon sources (e.g., hydrofluorocarbons) with new instrumentation. Weekly carbon cycle flask measurements will continue across Arctic areas in Canada, Norway, Iceland, Finland, the North Atlantic, and Alaska. A collaborative effort of U.S. agencies in the Yukon will install instrumentation for continuous, vertical sampling within a 300-m boundary layer. Aircraft sampling for carbon cycle gases will be expanded to sites in Saskatchewan, Canada and Poker Flats, Alaska. If funding permits, aircraft sampling will be added over Churchill on Hudson Bay, Manitoba, and several other sites. International cooperation continues with Russia at the Baseline Observatory on the central Siberian Arctic Ocean coast where carbon gas measurements will be conducted, particularly the measurements of CH4 that could be released from wetlands as the northern high latitudes continue to warm. In the Antarctic, flask gas sampling will continue at the South Pole Station, and at Halley, Syowa, and Palmer on the Antarctic coast. Carbon flask sampling will continue across the Drake Passage and around Antarctica on the support ship from Ushuaia to Palmer and the annual Chinese cruise, respectively.

These activities will address Goals 2, 3, and 4 and Questions 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, and 7.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Global Ocean Carbon.

Ongoing and new studies will continue to address understanding of the ocean carbon cycle and its effects on ocean carbon dynamics. Of particular interest are the feedbacks and drivers of ocean chemistry and biology, the biotic and abiotic partitioning of carbon, and constraints on ocean carbon sequestration. An interagency field study of air-sea CO2 flux and remotely sensed data in the high-latitude Southern Ocean during the 2007-2008 austral summer will focus on understanding both (a) the kinetics of gas exchange and the factors controlling it, and (b) the physical and biogeochemical factors controlling the exchange of CO2 across the air-sea interface, in the context of developing parameterizations for those factors that can ultimately be remotely sensed to determine regional and global air-sea CO2 fluxes. The Southern Ocean Gas Exchange Experiment (SO GasEx) will be conducted in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. Shipboard studies will include physical, chemical, biological, and meteorological measurements.

These activities will address Goals 2 and 3 and Questions 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, and 7.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Satellite Remote Sensing.

A new satellite will be launched with the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) to provide, for the first time, consistent atmospheric carbon observations globally from space. Measurements made from the observatory will permit carbon data assimilation systems to derive estimates of carbon sources and sinks with far higher spatial and temporal resolutions.

This activity will address Goals 2 and 3 and Questions 7.1, 7.2, 7.4, and 7.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Carbon Management and Decision Support.

New projects are underway that will allow government agencies, industry associations, and private landowners to include carbon management information derived from data, ecosystem models, and on-line tools (products of carbon cycle science research) into near- and long-term resource management decisions and policies. These projects are having a particular impact on forest management and agricultural practices. Projects will continue beyond the fiscal year to evaluate the utility of new observations of carbon in the atmosphere (e.g., from OCO to monitor and manage carbon sources and sinks) and to identify key carbon management questions that will benefit from a high-latitude priority planned for FY 2009.

These activities will address Goals 2 and 4 and Questions 7.3, 7.4, and 7.6 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.