Abstract
Managing carbon stocks in the land, ocean, and atmosphere under changing climate requires a globally-integrated view of carbon cycle processes at local and regional scales. The growing Earth Observation (EO) record is the backbone of this multi-scale system, providing local information with discrete coverage from surface measurements and regional information at global scale from satellites. Carbon flux information, anchored by inverse estimates from spaceborne Greenhouse Gas (GHG) concentrations, provides an important top-down view of carbon emissions and sinks, but currently lacks global continuity at assessment and management scales (<100 km). Partial-column data can help separate signals in the boundary layer from the overlying atmosphere, providing an opportunity to enhance surface sensitivity and bring flux resolution down from that of column-integrated data (100–500 km). Based on a workshop held in September 2024, the carbon cycle community envisions a carbon observation system leveraging GHG partial columns in the lower and upper troposphere to weave together information across scales from surface and satellite EO data, and integration of top-down/bottom-up analyses to link process understanding to global assessment.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e2025AV001914 |
| Journal | AGU Advances |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs |
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| State | Published - Dec 2025 |
Funding
The workshop was funded as an unsolicited proposal (Proposal #226264: In support of “Carbon Stocks Workshop: September 23–25, 2024”) by the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center, Earth Science Division, NASA. We acknowledge Anna Karion for participating in the workshop and the many constructive conversations. DC acknowledges support from the NASA Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) program. RKB was supported in part by the Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech. AF acknowledges funding from the NASA ECOSTRESS Science Team. NL is grateful for funding from NSF (OCE‐1752724). GM acknowledges funding from NASA CMS (NNH20ZDA001N). HN and BAG acknowledge support from appointments to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, administered by Oak Ridge Associated Universities under contract with NASA. The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy. The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. © 2025. All rights reserved. The workshop was funded as an unsolicited proposal (Proposal #226264: In support of “Carbon Stocks Workshop: September 23–25, 2024”) by the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center, Earth Science Division, NASA. We acknowledge Anna Karion for participating in the workshop and the many constructive conversations. DC acknowledges support from the NASA Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) program. RKB was supported in part by the Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech. AF acknowledges funding from the NASA ECOSTRESS Science Team. NL is grateful for funding from NSF (OCE-1752724). GM acknowledges funding from NASA CMS (NNH20ZDA001N). HN and BAG acknowledge support from appointments to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, administered by Oak Ridge Associated Universities under contract with NASA. The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy. The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. © 2025. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- biomass
- carbon cycling
- carbon management
- methane
- remote sensing
- top-down