A satellite data driven biophysical modeling approach for estimating northern peatland and tundra CO2 and CH4 fluxes

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Abstract
The northern terrestrial net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB) is contingent on inputs from vegetation gross primary productivity (GPP) to offset ecosystem respiration (Reco) of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) emissions, but an effective framework to monitor the regional Arctic NECB is lacking. We modified a terrestrial carbon flux (TCF) model developed for satellite remote sensing applications to estimate peatland and tundra CO2 and CH4 fluxes over a pan-Arctic network of eddy covariance (EC) flux tower sites. The TCF model estimates GPP, CO2 and CH4 emissions using either in-situ or remote sensing based climate data as input. TCF simulations driven using in-situ data explained >70% of the r2 variability in 8 day cumulative EC measured fluxes. Model simulations using coarser satellite (MODIS) and reanalysis (MERRA) data as inputs also reproduced the variability in the EC measured fluxes relatively well for GPP (r2 = 0.75), Reco (r2 = 0.71), net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE, r2 = 0.62) and CH4 emissions (r2 = 0.75). Although the estimated annual CH4 emissions were small (180 g C m−2 yr−1), they reduced the across-site NECB by 23% and contributed to a global warming potential of approximately 165 ± 128 g CO2eq m−2 yr−1 when considered over a 100 yr time span. This model evaluation indicates a strong potential for using the TCF model approach to document landscape scale variability in CO2 and CH4 fluxes, and to estimate the NECB for northern peatland and tundra ecosystems.
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