Carbon Monitoring System (CMS)

Applications ProgramPresented by

Molly Brown (GSFC)

System Design StudyPresented by

Riley Duren (JPL)

5 October 2011Alexandria, VA

NASA Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) Applications Program

CMS Team:M. Brown, NASAM. Macauley, RFF

V. Escobar, Sigma Space/NASAA. Leidner, AAAS fellow

J. Howl, Sigma Space/NASA

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CMS Applications ActivityObjective: to help CMS scientists understand who may use products from current work and to motivate options for future work

From the CMS SDT Call:• Provide guidance on the nature of the data sets and initial pilot

product(s) to be produced and how they may be used for carbon policy and carbon management decisions – How can they be made most useful? – What would make them easy to understand and use? – What data products or data product characteristics (e.g. latency, frequency,

accuracy, etc.) are missing? • Provide liaison with the broader science, applications, and user

communities or the related activities of other U.S. Federal agencies• In the case of the Biomass Pilot, participate in the development of a

plan for a global terrestrial biomass product to follow the regional and national products

9/21/11

CMS Biomass • CMS SDT briefings on the biomass product

– Focus is on who will use the CMS-Biomass product and what product attributes (resolution, update frequency, etc.) are most useful?

– Synthesizing our information into summary charts and tables as “a Framework for characterizing policy and management uses”

• Meeting on 9 September 2011 brought together key stakeholders– Maryland Department of Natural Resources– US Forest Service– USGS– World Wildlife Fund– Forest Carbon Index (RFF)

• Discussion of uses, promise and future of CMS biomass products

9/21/11

• Consider whether it is useful to expand CMS scope to exploit its relevance for forest watershed management, habitat protection for biodiversity, a database for markets for ecosystem services

• Consider whether we would like to meet with large-scale private landholders (timber companies) –to share information about CMS

• Give priority to building into the biomass product some consideration about ease of use, low cost (including costs of hardware/software/ analysis requirements, ease of interpretation) for a viable biomass product

• Don’t hang CMS effort on expectation of widespread carbon markets• Engage with the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice

(SBSTA) of the UNFCCC as they establish MRV standards• See these discussions as continuing dialogs -- continue to keep sister agencies

& other organizations informed (USGS, NGOs, private sector)

Key Recommendations from the Biomass Briefing

CMS Flux • CMS SDT for Flux

• Our focus has evolved from ‘who are the users’ to ‘how to characterize uncertainty and its relevance to users (key difference between biomass and flux products)

• Understanding the tails in error distribution is very policy relevant

• Need to combine multiple sources of error and their propagation– observations, satellite data, model error, spatial aggregation, temporal change

• Build on work already done in understanding stakeholders in the flux arena before start of CMS

• Collaboration with Riley and his team to characterize uncertainty

9/21/11

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Future work focuses on How good is “good enough” for product users?

• Spatial scale: – “…verification of an emissions-trading and/or offset program would require

monitoring at scales as small as a forest plantation or a farm.” (NRC 2010, 48)

– “Because ecosystem carbon uptake and release fluctuate from year to year w/ changes in the weather and other factors, carbon gains caused by deliberate management will be best measured against the baseline carbon flux on similar lands w/out the management.” (NRC 2010, 48)

• Frequency:– “…produce publicly available global maps of land-use and land cover

change from Landsat and High-resolution satellite imagery at least every two years.” (NRC 2010, 50)

• Accuracy (‘uncertainty’ to some users):– “Tier 2 accuracy is the minimum required for reliable estimates, and is

achievable for monitoring deforestation at low cost. It is much more difficult and costly for other activities, such as degradation.” (DFID Infosheet 2010)7/12/11

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• We have developed a table to identify attributes of measurements being used for the major initiatives

• We include these attributes– Resolution: spatial, spectral, temporal– Geographic breadth: global, continental, national, regional, local– Accuracy: =/- % confidence interval

• We also ask: what improvements in these attributes are highest priority and why?

• This task has been the most difficult– Many users of measurements lack these specifications– Many users simply use whatever data are available …(much like many people use US census

data without knowledge about accuracy and data limitations)– Many users do not know the heritage of their data (for example, if they are MODIS, Landsat,

etc)

• Yet we feel that this task is critical for the overall CMS effort

Attributes of CMS products

9/21/11

Next Steps: Focus on Communicating CMS

• Web Site– CMS descriptions of results, access to products– Stories, podcasts

• Publications (EOS transactions, others)• Meetings with stakeholder communities

– Planning for “uncertainty” working group meeting now underway

– Early February date• One-page policy briefs – forest conservation,

economic benefit, others?9/21/11

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CMS System Design Study

5 October 2011System Engineering Team: Riley Duren, Chuck Weisbin, Matt Bennett, Bill Lincoln

w/contributions from M. Gunson, C. Miller, M. Lee, K. Bowman, S. Saatchi, T. FreemanNASA JPL

This work is supported by NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System programhttp://carbon.nasa.gov

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Mission data sets (2011-2021)

Mapping CMS to NASA’s “program of record”

Related Research &

Analysis

RelatedApplications

CMS program

Flux Pilot BiomassPilot

Future CMS

Projects?

CMS Products

CMS Users

30+ space/airborne missions & instruments: land & ocean carbon, atmospheric composition & transport

Systematic study looking across the NASA program of record – towards moving beyond methodological studies to deliver policy-relevant data products

System design study process(8 month initial effort)

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CMS Level 1 performance goals

GHGIS, IPCC TFI, GEO, others (2008-2011)

Anthropogenic & Natural Signal,

Error & Sensitivity Analysis

Policy analysis

NASA program of record

Capability/GapAssessment

Level 2 needs for observations, research, applications

Use-case scenarios

Driving policy questions

CMS Applications task (2011)

What do we need to know?

How well do we need to know it?

Notional roadmap through 2021

How well can we do?

When can we deliver it? What preparations needed?

What, specifically, is needed to deliver the product?

(green boxes indicate efforts underway)

User Engagement*

*mostly focused on mitigation (so far)

Selected use-case scenarios for CMS(down-selected from larger list*)

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Users Policy Questions CMS Use-Case ScenariosMayors of international mega-cities (C4O),USG treaty community

What are the trends of total CO2 emissions for the entities expected to undergo the most rapid change (growth and stabilization) between now and 2020?

Apply remote-sensing from satellites (and where possible, aircraft) and tracer transport models to estimate and attribute the net anthropogenic CO2 emission fluxes and their 5- and 10-year trends for the countries of China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, and the UK and the cities of Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Jakarta, Mexico City, LA, NYC, Paris, London and Tokyo (expected 5 year trends range from 15 to 60%, see Table X) to support assessment of the impacts of stabilization policies or business-as-usual growth. Apply ancilary remote-sensing data as required to robustly disentangle anthropogenic and natural fluxes. Incorporate surface observations by partners to improve products and support cal/val.

US EPA What are the annual net emissions of selected area sources of CO2 and CH4 for the US?

Apply remote-sensing from satellites and aircraft to estimate and attribute the annual fluxes of selected area sources of CO2 and CH4 for the United States. Apply ancilary remote-sensing data as required to robustly disentangle anthropogenic and natural fluxes. Where possible, combine flux estimates with EPA gridded inventories to validate and improve inventory estimates for selected sectors (current uncertainties for AFOLU CO2 and CH4 can exceed 30-50% per year in the US). Incorporate surface observations by partners to improve products and support cal/val.

USAID, World Bank, Asian Bank, Global Methane Iniative

What are the trends between now and 2020 in air-quality/aerosols and short-lived GHGs in China and India (including CH4, CO, NMVOC, NOx and aerosol/precursors/BC)?

Apply remote-sensing from satellites to estimate and attribute the 5- and 10-year trends in air-quality/aerosols and short-lived GHGs in China and India (including CH4, CO, NMVOC, NOx and aerosol/precursors/BC). Where possible, produce an integrated assessment of the short-term (20 yr GWP) net radiative forcing impact of changes in positive and negative forcing agents. Incorporate surface observations by partners to improve products and support cal/val.

UNFCCC (REDD+),GCF, USFS,GEO, SilvaCarbon, various NGOs

Are the baseline claimed offset credits for identified forest carbon projects as small as 1000 hectares (TBR) in the US and pan-tropics accurate/real and have those stocks been disturbed significantly by 2020 ?

Apply remote-sensing from satellites (and where possible, aircraft) and appropriate models to estimate for the US and the pan-tropics (30deg N, 40 deg S latitude band) the a) baseline carbon stock sequestered in above ground woody biomass and b) disturbances in those stocks at 5 and 10 year intervals at a scale of <= 1,000 hectares to support assessments of claimed carbon offset credits (e.g, are they real and permanent with uncertainties< 10% (vs the currently available uncertainties of 20 to >50%). Incorporate surface observations by partners to improve products and support cal/val.

“Level 1” performance targetsfor CMS products

FLUXES(F1) Near-surface flux maps of total CO2 with 98% global completeness between +/- 59 latitude, flux uncertainty (precision) < 50 gCm-2yr-1 (countries) and 500 gCm-2yr-1 (cities), bi-weekly temporal resolution, 1 sq deg global grid scale with 10km nested grids (approximately 50 each < 10,000 km2) for selected cities and N (TBD) area sources of CO2. (F2) similar for CH4 but TBD flux uncertainty and TBD number of targets, (F3) similar for CO, NOx, and aerosols/BC, (F4) Final (anthropogenic CO2) map product derived from correlation of CO2, CO, NOx and/or surface-based radio-isotope observations to robustly separate anthropogenic and natural CO2 fluxes, (F5) Per-entity emission estimates (annual and multi-year trends), (F6) Synthesis products indicating biases and potential errors between top-down and bottom-up emission flux estimates (where space-time resolved inventories are available), (F7) Uncertainty estimates and meta-data (supporting reconstruction) for all of the above.

BIOMASS (B1) Maps of baseline forest biomas carbon stocks for the year 2015 (TBR) with 98% completeness for the US and pan-tropics (+30/-40 deg latitude), uncertainty < +/- 10% (95% confidence interval) at a project scale of 1000 ha (TBR), 0.1 deg global grid, (B2) Disturbance maps at 5 and 10 year intervals for above product with TBD precision.

*this is a mitigation focus; support for adaptation/ecosystem services or improved projections (IAMs) not (yet) addressed here

Observations of atmospheric composition

Observationsof parameters

affecting atmospheric state

*Notional & preliminary; credit (& apologies) to Mike Gunson

Framework for flux signals,

errors, & uncertainties*

Land surface model

Assimilation modeling

Surface flux (total)

FF emissions

AFOLU

Ocean exhange

ForestNEE

Fossil Fuel combustion

model

Ecosystem model

Atmospheric meteorology & transport

model

Observations of land cover, disturbance,

etc

Observations of FF activity(or proxies)

Ocean surface model

Ocean physical circ.

model

Ocean organic carbon model

Observations of marine

biogeochem

Observations of parameters

affecting ocean circ.

F

B

A

C D

Attribution

E

What are the driving sensitivities for Flux F?

Example:

where A = f{Nobs, XCO2, vert res, calibration, etc}

Where’s the biggest bang for the buck for improvements?

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Challenges & Opportunities

• Staying ahead (or at least keeping up with) evolving policies

• Policy relevant uncertainty quantification & communication

• Sustained delivery & support for products

• Attribution of anthropogenic fluxes (on policy relevant scales)– Complex, interdisciplinary topic warrants a sustained research focus– Probably need (much) denser observations and multiple gas species

• Total forcing on multiple policy time-horizons– Probably need to address all carbon including short-lived agents

Suggests a potential convergence ofCarbon, Climate & Air Quality (at NASA & other agencies)

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USGCRP Strategic Plan

2012-2021http://strategicplancomments.globalchange.gov/

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backup

Motivation

• From the NASA 2010 Climate-Centric Architecture plan (re: CMS)– “provide an improving set of products on carbon storage and exchange between the

surface and biosphere for regular delivery to policy and decision-makers, ”– “enhance the use of data from the increasing range of NASA satellites and

improvement in NASA’s modeling, data assimilation, and systems engineering capabilities to provide improved products in the future”

• From the CMS 2010 Workshop Report & CMS Website– The scoping study will map NASA’s evolving observational and modeling

capability and the ability of the research and applied science community to use this capability to enhance information products to meet policy and decision-making requirements. This effort will focus on streamlining the flow of information products to decision-makers from future research efforts and planned observation capabilities, allowing NASA to engage the carbon policy and decision-making community.

Suggests a systematic and strategic study looking across the NASA program of record – focused on moving beyond methodological studies to deliver policy-relevant data products

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What we hope to learn• An INITIAL assessment of…

– What do we need to know (policy/user questions for CMS)?

– How well do we need to know it (performance attributes of CMS products)?

– What, specifically, is required in terms of observations, research, & applications?

– How well can we do (with the NASA program of record)?

– When can we deliver it (CMS products)?

– What else should we be doing to prepare? (including specific focus areas)

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Potentially relevant mission data setsMission Atmospheric

compositionAtmospheric

transportLand carbon Ocean carbon

(incl circulation)

OCO-2 ✔

OCO-3 ✔

ASCENDS ✔

Aura/TES ✔ ✔

Aura/OMI ✔

Aqua/AIRS ✔ ✔

Aqua/MODIS ✔ ✔

Terra/MODIS ✔ ✔

Terra/MOPITT ✔ ✔

NPP/CrIS ✔ ✔

LDCM ✔

SMAP ✔

DESDynI ✔

ICESAT-2 ✔

NPP/VIIRS ✔

PACE ✔

ACE ✔

SWOT ✔

OSTM ✔

Aquarius ✔

HyspIRI ✔

GeoCAPE (depends) ✔ ✔ ✔

Plus:Known airbornedata sets (e.g, CARVE, AirMOSS,others)

Plus:potentialnew satellite &airborne data sets (Ventures)

Plus:Data from international partners (e.g., GOSAT, Sentinel-5P, others)

Potential CMS users (partial list)operational agencies supporting decision-makers in national, state, and

local govts; NGOs; private industry and individual stakeholders

ORGANIZATION PRODUCTS POLICIES

EPA, CARB AFOLU/area fluxes(CO2, CH4, N2O)

Clean Air Act, California AB32

DOS, DOE, & IC CO2 fossil-fuel fluxes (urban & country level); Land Cover Change

Multi-lateral treaty or bi-lateral agreement

DOI-USGS US Ecosystem carbon (forest & soil biomass?)

EISA

USAID Global forest biomass (stocks & disturbance) REDD+/Silva Carbon

USDA-USFS, & state/regional

US & Global Forest biomass (stocks & disturbance)

REDD+ & existing forest mandates

USDA-ARS Soil Organic Carbon (research) Farm Bill

USDA-NRCS Soil Organic Carbon (operational) Farm Bill

Cities Urban CO2 & CH4 fluxes City level GHG mitigation agreements (C40, ICLEI)

*IPCC TFI and member agencies is a potential related user

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Potential Policy Questions (partial, unconstrained list)

1. Are all parties to GHG stabilization treaties meeting their commitments?2. Do the annual reported GHG emissions (e.g., national emission inventories) for the top N treaty parties reflect

their true emissions for a given year? 3. What are the trends of fossil-fuel CO2 for the top 7 emitting countries (~85% of the total) over 10 years?4. What are the trends of total CO2 and CH4 emissions for the entities expected to undergo the most rapid change

(growth and stabilization) over the next 10 years?5. What are the annual net emissions of AFOLU area sources of CO2 and all sources of CH4 for a given inventory?6. What are the trends in FF CO2 emissions from all major urban areas (as a proxy for national level emissions)?7. Are specific mitigation actions by the world’s largest cities (~75% of the total) having the expected impact on

trends of local, regional and global atmospheric concentrations of fossil-fuel CO2? 8. What are the annual CO2 emissions of each of the 1500 largest fossil-fuel power plants (~90% of the total)?9. What impact are projects to transform energy production and residential fuel use in developing countries having

on trends of air-quality/aerosols and various long- and short-lived GHGs? 10. How are policies focused on near-term (20 year) climate forcing impacting atmospheric concentrations of short-

lived forcing agents? 11. Are the baseline claimed offset credits for a given forest or agricultural soil project accurate/real?12. Are the claimed offset credits for a given carbon project permanent (are they being disturbed)? 13. How is ocean acidification changing in response to specific GHG mitigation policies? 14. What is the magnitude of “lateral flux” contributed by coastal (EEZ) ocean-air carbon to the net emissions of the

largest emitting countries with coastlines?

And for all, how good is good enough?(e.g., ±X% uncertainty at Y% confidence interval

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Sensitivity Analyses• Several options for assessing sensitivities

– Error propagation analysis (iterative)– Forward model runs– Full-blown OSSE simulations

• Resource-limited on how many permutations we can explore

• Initial foci for our study– Sensitivity to biomass uncertainty to selected

observational parameters (for various carbon offset project spatial scales)

– 4 OSSE runs to assess sensitivity of CO2 flux uncertainty estimate (expressed as fractional flux uncertainty reduction relative to prior) on 2.5 x 2 sq deg grid, monthly addresses XCO2 sampling

• GOSAT only• GOSAT + OCO-2• GOSAT + OCO-2 + OCO-3 (on ISS)• GOSAT + OCO-2 + OCO-3 + Geostationary Vis/IR sounder (1

possibility for GeoCAPE)

• How should we represent relative performance that doesn’t mask the “true uncertainty”?

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Representative literature • US Carbon Cycle Science Plan (update in progress 2011), http://www.carboncyclescience.gov/ • NASA Carbon Monitoring System Scoping Study Workshop Report (2010), http

://carbon.nasa.gov/pdfs/2010%20CMS_Scoping%20Study%20Workshop%20Report.pdf• IPCC Expert Meeting on Uncertainty and Validation of Emission Inventories (2010),

http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/meeting/pdfiles/1003_Uncertainty%20meeting_report.pdf• US National Research Council (NRC): Verifying GHG emissions: methods to support international climate

agreements (2010) http://www.nap.edu/• GEO Carbon Strategy (2010)

http://www.earthobservations.org/documents/sbas/cl/201006_geo_carbon_strategy_report.pdf • RFF report on Forest measurement and monitoring (2010) http://www.rff.org/Publications/• GHG Information System (GHGIS) Interagency Workshops on Needs and Capabilities (2008 & 2009)

http://climate.nasa.gov/Documents/• The First State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR): The North American Carbon Budget and Implications

for the Global Carbon Cycle (2007)http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/

• U.S. Climate Change Technology Program, Strategic Plan, Chapter 8 - Enhancing Capabilities to Measure and Monitor Greenhouse Gases (2006) http://www.climatetechnology.gov/stratplan/final

• R. Duren, P. DeCola, C. Miller, “Global, geospatially resolved CO2 atmospheric flux constraints on reported anthropogenic emissions”, B. American Met. Soc., 2011, in prep.

• R. Duren and C. Miller, “CO2 and the city”, Nature, 2011, submitted.• R. Duren and C. Miller, “Towards robust global greenhouse gas monitoring”, J. Greenhouse Gas Meas and

Manag., May 2011.

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Time horizons of climate policies: (including short-lived species)

58%19%

9%

5%5%

5%

Contribution to GWP-100

CO2CH4N2OF-gasesCO/NMVOC+NoxAerosols/BC

37%

32%

5%

5%

11%

11%

Contribution to GWP-20

CO2CH4N2OF-gasesCO/NMVOC+NoxAerosols/BC

Focusing on CARBON species (including short-lived)nets 86-89% of total forcing (100 & 20 yr)

(example NO2 emission grid – OMI 0.25 deg)(example CO2 emission grid – Edgar 10km)

Global distribution of FF CO2 emissions(to see NO2 map, click in presentation mode)

Pre-decisional discussion material

Total CO2 fluxes from individual countries (100km, annual)(Duren, DeCola, Miller, BAMS 2011 in prep)

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ATTRIBUTION CHALLENGE: Anthropogenic fluxes of individual countries at 100 km (typically <200 gCm-2yr-1) are ≥4X smaller than natural fluxes (+/- 800 gCm-2yr-1)

See slide note section below for references

FLUX SENSITIVITY CHALLENGE: achieving uncertainties in estimated fluxes (e) comparable to Annex I inventories (<10%) requires flux sensitivity >100X better than current capability (5 vs >500 gCm -2yr-1)

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Distribution of fossil-fuel CO2 fluxes in the US* (100km)

*similar patterns, different magnitutes in other large regions (e.g., China, EU, Russia)

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Distribution of fossil-fuel CO2 fluxes in the US (10km)

Figure 3. 2006 fossil fuel CO2 emissions for the US plotted on a 1° x 1° grid (after CDIAC) in units Megatons Carbon, with a higher threshold than shown in Figure 2 indicating that 75% of fossil fuel emissions in the US come from < 10% of the surface area of the 48 contiguous states and Hawaii at 100 km scale, with a mean flux of about 600 gC m-2 yr-1 from those areas. The inset shows a detailed estimate of the same on a 10km x 10km grid for 2004 (Vulcan) for the city of Indianapolis, where peak fluxes exceed 20,000 gC m-2 yr-1.

FF CO2 fluxes from cities (annual)

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Table 2. Surface areas, reported CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use, and resulting emission fluxes for some of the world’s largest cities (after NRC, 2010). The rightmost column indicates the resulting range of uncertainties on net emission estimates assuming the target flux sensitivity of 500 gC m-2 yr-1 could be achieved for a 10km resolution, diurnal CO2 flux map product. Uncertainties in the emission estimates for each city are not available and hence not shown here. However, the true fluxes could be ±50% of those shown here.

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Likely future trends in FF CO2(for the countries & cities undergoing the most rapid change)

Table 3. Exploration of potential future change scenarios for several “big trenders”: 2 developing countries (China and India), 2 developed countries/regions (UK and EU), and 2 developed cities (LA and Paris). Business As Usual (BAU) Emission Growth indicates best estimate of typical annual emissions growth during the period 2000-2010. Reduction pledge indicates proposed near-term targets for stabilization policies. Likely Future Change explores the hypothetical integrated 10 year change for the period 2010-2020 for either BAU growth or stabilization. These numbers suggest the ability to robustly detect a 15-20% change (growth or stabilization) over a 5 year interval would help confirm the effects of policies (or lack thereof).

WORK IN PROGRESS