Temporal Scales of Tropospheric CO2, Precipitation, and Ecosystem Responses in the Central U.S.
Issue Date
2011-08-31Author
Cochran, Ferdouz V.
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
78 pages
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
M.A.
Discipline
Geography
Rights
This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.
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Show full item recordAbstract
Concentrations of CO2 in the mid-troposphere retrieved by NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) were examined in relation to surface carbon dynamics, vegetation phenology, and precipitation (PPT) in the central US. Wavelet multi-resolution analysis was applied and the information theory metric of relative entropy computed for comparisons of eddy covariance tower CO2 measurements at three sites in Northeastern Kansas with different land cover types. Sites experiencing woody encroachment agreed with AIRS mid-tropospheric CO2 on a four-day time scale, while the tallgrass prairie site showed agreement at one month. Local, surface CO2 measurements and regional PPT and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values show greatest correlations with AIRS mid-tropospheric CO2 at the 18-month scale. AIRS observations agree with regional PPT and NDVI at seasonal and interannual scales suggesting that AIRS CO2 measurements can be used to assess regional source-sink dynamics related to climate forcings.
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