NASA Satellite Measures Earth's Carbon Metabolism

Roland Piquepaille writes "To celebrate Earth Day, the NASA Earth Observatory recently revealed global measurements of the Earth's metabolism. 'Combining space-based measurements of a range of plant properties collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) with a suite of other satellite and surface-based measurements, NASA scientists produce composite maps of our world's 'net primary production' every 8 days. This new measurement is called net production because it indicates how much carbon dioxide is taken in by vegetation during photosynthesis minus how much is given off during respiration.' Check this column for a summary including the usefulness of such measurements. You'll also find maps showing the seasonal variation of Earth's net primary production."

Now show where carbon get produced!

[Ja-Ja-Jamin]

Show where it gets produced contrasted with where it gets consumed and show the rate of the difference. Combine that with charts showing how typical day to day activities contribute to either column. Now you'll have something that can help the average person make a difference! This is a good start!

Re:Now show where carbon get produced!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, most people will probably just leave it for someone else to take care of, like their children. I mean, making a difference takes effort, and Joe Public is too lazy to put in effort that doesn't directly benefit himself.

Re:Coniferous forests

[sigep_ohio]

Well in June the earth's northern hemisphere is facing the sun, so norhtern plants are more productive. In December the Southern hemisphere is facing the sun, and so plants in the south are more productive. Meanwhile between the tropics light levels do not differ significantly throughout the year, so there is not much fluctuation in plant productivity.

atleast thats how I read the pictures.

Carbon Budget

[SEWilco]

That's a nice picture of plant activity. Now if the carbon budget could get balanced, so we know how much carbon is going where... and NASA may have a little difficulty measuring how much is landing on the ocean bottom.

Oh, why does it matter? If more carbon is being removed by the carbon cycle than is being released -- we'll run out of carbon dioxide. No plant respiration. No oxygen production.

I don't entirely buy this...

[kevlar]

I'm not trying to be critical here, but I do not completely believe this data. Its given to us in an incredibly misleading way. They are essentially telling us that every square foot of the planet produces more CO2 than O2 which is simply not possible. There's no mapping of negative production, so it looks like we're spiralling out of control.

Re:These kinds of studies...

[sigep_ohio]

I always thought that Mars lacked the gravity to hold a sufficient amount of greenhouse gases. I mean doesn't it have like 1/3 the gravity of earth, which means it wouldn't be able to hold the same amount of atmosphere. Additionally, it is farther from the sun, so it gets less light. That would mean it would need more greenhouse gases than earth does. Added together it means that Mars can't be terraformed like in the movies.

Maybe I am missing something, but thats how I figure it. I am certainly no expert in the field, so anyone no better?

Re:Interesting

[edgrale]

Please note that the amazon rain forest is producing oxygen all year long, even when the northern hemisphere has winter. And when the amazon is producing less it is "winter" over there.

Unlike the northern hemisphere, the amazon produces oxygen even when it is "cooler" there. To quote the article, you did read it and not just look at the pictures?

"However, tropical forests are more productive over a full year because of their longer growing season."

Re:Interesting

[Catskul]

Well there is alot of importance to the rainforests besides their carbon consumption. I think one of the real resources is the bio-diversity.

If (notice the emphasis) the carbon consumpton of the rainforests is, as it seems in these diagrams, not as significant as many have been lead to believe, then it has been irresponsible for those who are trying to protect this resource to over emphasize some particular data just because they believe they can get more attention that way. It seems to happen in every aspect of politics though. The use of half-truths is a powerfull political weapon that many cant resist using.

No - graphics are mislabeled; some npp numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on folks. Most of vegitation dry weight is carbon. If it took a square kilometer to fix a kilogram of carbon each year... well, leaf raking would be sooo much easier. The units should probably be kgC per square meter per year. But what's a 6 order of magnitude error between friends. Got to love NASA PR.

Earth's surface as a 20 x 25 Megameter rectangle [vendian.org] has some old npp numbers from John Harte's "Consider a Spherical Cow". (I would have inlined them here, but I can't seem to do a PRE tag...) Google would no doubt turn up other sources.