Observing the carbon cycle into the future: Remote sensing and modeling needs

Significant concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) are sequestered by both terrestrial and aquatic natural systems, helping offset the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere and slowing down global warming. However, large uncertainties remain in these uptake processes and the feedbacks that exist with the changing climate, in particular whether these ecosystem services will change in the future. Space-based measurements of carbon enable the view of the Earth as a system, which is critical to understand processes and feedbacks across ecosystems. Over the past two decades, they have significantly improved the understanding of changes across land ecosystems and their connection to atmospheric components, as well as better quantification of the ocean biological pump, which is critical to sequestering, at geologic time scales, CO2 from the atmosphere. Coupled with satellite observations, models can improve our ability to predict the impact of climate-induced changes on the carbon cycle, and how the interactions between and across ecosystems will translate into carbon cycle feedbacks.

Sustained and improved satellite observations of the different components of the carbon cycle, as well as biogeochemical model advances, are critical to detect trends in global and regional carbon fluxes, and to better prepare for potential changes in the ability of ecosystems to continue to provide carbon-related services. This presentation will explore existing gaps in carbon measurements across ecosystems and the role current and planned space-based measurements from missions like PACE, OCO2, and CO2MVS, planned field campaigns like Arctic COLORS, and biogeochemical modeling, can play in filling those gaps and reducing uncertainty over the next decade as we move into an era of higher climate uncertainty and more constrained budgets.