Natural Carbon Fluxes

Assimilation of satellite data in land surface models to monitor the terrestrial carbon cycle

The Observatory of Natural Carbon fluxes of geoland (ONC) will provide a pre-operational global accounting system, dealing with the impact of weather and climate variability on soil and vegetation carbon fluxes and stocks.

ONC will deliver a unique tool to evaluate the inter-annual variability of the terrestrial carbon cycle at global and regional scales. The scientific understanding of natural terrestrial carbon fluxes will be improved, in support of the implementation of the Kyoto protocol. ONC will provide the scientific and observational basis on natural terrestrial fluxes which may be used in the context of international negotiations and carbon sequestration policies. IGBP, IGOS-P, PIK, and GCP are declared users of ONC. It is likely that the knowledge gained on the natural fluxes will be used in atmospheric transport studies based on remotely sensed atmospheric CO2 concentration. The products of ONC will permit to improve the atmospheric inversions and, over some regions, to help constrain the uncertainties of the anthropogenic sources. The HALO project, led by the European Center for Medium range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), will optimise the interactions of ONC with other GMES integrated projects:

www.ecmwf.int/research/EU_projects/HALO/