GCOS Implementation Plan - WMO

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Implementation Plan for the Global Observing System for Climate in Support of the UNFCCC (2010 Update) the basis of the country-by-country summary statistics, such as those published by the FAO in their Forest Resource Assessments. Progress toward creating global gridded biomass datasets can be achieved by appropriately-designed satellite and aircraft missions, notably active microwave and laser systems. Space agencies should plan for such missions. Action T32 Action: Develop demonstration datasets of above ground biomass across all biomes. Who: Parties, space agencies, national institutes, research organizations, FAO in association with GTOS, TOPC, and the GOFC-GOLD Biomass Working Group. Time frame: 2012. Performance Indicator: Availability of global gridded estimates of above ground biomass and associated carbon content. Annual Cost Implications: 1-10M US$ (20% in non-Annex-I Parties). ECV - Soil Carbon Soils represent the largest terrestrial carbon pool. On seasonal to decadal time scales, carbon sinks may be explained by changes in above-ground biomass, but on longer time scales soil carbon stocks become more relevant. Globally, the largest soil carbon stocks are primarily located in wetlands and peatlands, most of which are located on permafrost and in the Tropics. This soil carbon is vulnerable to changes in the hydrological cycle as well as to changes in permafrost dynamics (in the boreal zone), while tropical peatlands are severely threatened by deforestation and the transformation of primary forest to plantations. The total amount of carbon stored in soils and its distribution is still highly uncertain, and new estimates of carbon content at various depths are urgently needed. The change in soil organic carbon is largely influenced by anthropogenic activities, particularly through the conversion of natural ecosystems to agricultural land. The soil organic carbon is contained within micro-aggregates, and a part is lost through respiration and erosion after their destruction. Soil organic carbon varies as a function of the texture, bulk density, microbiologic activity, and organic matter contained in the vegetation. Many authors have proposed quantification of the carbon stored in soils and study of the role of soils as both a source and sink of carbon. Comprehensive measurements of soil organic carbon involve identifying the different soil types and extracting soil samples. Since this is particularly labour-intensive and costly, a composite sampling method is necessary. Action T33 Action: Develop a global database of soil carbon measurements and techniques for extrapolation to global gridded products of soil carbon. Who: Parties, national institutes, research organisations, and FAO, in association with GTOS and TOPC. Time frame 2012-2014. Performance Indicator: Completeness of database and availability of prototype soil carbon maps. Annual Cost Implications: 1-10M US$ (10% in non-Annex-I Parties). The identification of changes in soil carbon may be possible over long time scales at a limited number of sites identified under Action T33, e.g., those selected under Action T3, but additional and perhaps more accurate information on changes in soil carbon may be inferred from measurements of the annual cycle of carbon flux at these sites. Such understanding and monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions and sinks is a fundamental step toward avoiding dangerous climate change. Obtaining verifiable and agreed estimates of regional CO 2 sources and sinks is very important in the ongoing UNFCCC negotiation cycle to define emission reductions after the Kyoto Protocol. The consensus is that data assimilation systems that use both terrestrial and atmospheric data (i.e., GAW concentration data) will ultimately provide the required carbon fluxes at the required accuracy. Such systems are under development. 126
Implementation Plan for the Global Observing System for Climate in Support of the UNFCCC (2010 Update) Earth observation data from various sources are useful to derive indicators of carbon flux (e.g., LAI, FAPAR), but these only document some of the carbon cycle processes. For example, FAPAR provides information on CO 2 uptake, and satellite-based land surface imagery is essential for estimating emissions due to forest clearance. Assimilation of trace-gas concentration data, and column data provided by passive or active satellite sensors, together with a priori estimates of terrestrial fluxes and an atmospheric transport model, allow determination of large, continental-scale fluxes with uncertainties. The NOAA CarbonTracker scheme is probably the most advanced of these tools, but, as with all assimilation schemes, depends strongly on both the quantity and quality of atmospheric and surface data. All FLUXNET sites maintain continuous CO 2 flux measurements based on the eddy covariance technique covering various biomes around the world. Standards for data acquisition processing and archiving have been set in the framework of large international-scale projects (GTOS TCO, Global Carbon Project (GCP)) and continental-scale carbon projects (CarboEurope, CarboAfrica, US, Carbon Cycle Plan, etc). These standards should be implemented, preferably through centralised data quality-control centres and agreed protocols, such as those under the GAW umbrella. Integrated proposed carbon observing systems, such as ICOS, potentially provide the long-term monitoring capability to move the research network into a GCOS/GTOS baseline network. Action T34 Action: Develop globally gridded estimates of terrestrial carbon flux from in situ observations and satellite products and assimilation/inversions models. Who: Reanalysis centres and research organisations, in association with national institutes, space agencies, and FAO/GTOS (TCO and TOPC). Time Frame: 2014-2019. Performance indicator: Availability of data assimilation systems and global time series of maps of various terrestrial components of carbon exchange (e.g., Gross Primary Production (GPP), Net Ecosystem Production (NEP), and Net Biome Production (NBP)). Annual Cost Implications: 10-30M US$ (Mainly by Annex-I Parties). ECV – Fire Disturbance Fire disturbance on Earth is characterised by large spatial and temporal variations on multiple time scales (diurnally, seasonally and inter-annually). By consuming vegetation and emitting aerosols and trace gases, fires have a large influence on the storage and flux of carbon in the biosphere and atmosphere, can cause long-term changes in land cover, and affect land-atmosphere fluxes of energy and water. In general, fires are expected to become more severe under a warmer climate, depending on changes in precipitation. At the same time, some ecosystems, particularly in the Tropics and boreal zones, are becoming subject to increasing fire due to growing population, economic, and land-use pressures. The amount of burned biomass in ecosystems can vary by an order of magnitude, especially between wet and dry years, and these strong year-to-year variations may influence the interannual change seen in the global atmospheric CO 2 growth rate. Informed policy- and decision-making clearly requires timely and accurate quantification of fire activity and its impacts nationally, regionally, and globally. Burned area, active fire detection, and Fire Radiative Power datasets together form the Fire Disturbance ECV, and the separate products can be combined to generate improved information, e.g., mapping of fire affected areas to the fullest extent, including the timing of burning of each affected grid-cell. Estimates of total dry matter fuel consumption (and thus carbon emission) can be calculated from these products. By applying speciesspecific emissions factors, emission totals for the various trace gases and aerosols can then be calculated. Fires are typically patchy and heterogeneous. Measurements of global burnt area are therefore required at a spatial resolution of 250 m (minimum resolution of 500 m) from optical remote sensing, ideally on a weekly basis, and, if possible with day of burn information. Detection of actively burning fires and measurement of Fire Radiative Power (FRP) is often adequately done at lower spatial resolutions (1 km), but the sensor must have mid- and thermal-infrared spectral channels with a wide 127
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WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION I
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FOREWORD This 2010 Update of the Im
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6. TERRESTRIAL CLIMATE OBSERVING SY
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Implementation Plan for the Global
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GCOS Implementation Plan - WMO

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