The carbon cycle is central to the Earth system, being inextricably coupled with climate, the water cycle, nutrient cycles and the production of biomass by photosynthesis on land and in the oceans. A proper understanding of the global carbon cycle is critical for understanding the environmental history of our planet and its human inhabitants, and for predicting and guiding their joint future.
CarbonFlux will contribute to this understanding by:
1. Adopt two independent biogeochemical models to allow multiple observations from (fAPAR), hydrosphere (soil moisture) and atmosphere (total column CO2) to be assimilated with the aim to improve terrestrial carbon cycle predictions and refine the assessment of related uncertainties.
2. Run data assimilation experiments to quantify the incremental value of earth observation products of fAPAR, soil moisture, and total column CO2 on the quality of global scale biogeochemical models.
3. Interpret the model analysis in terms of feedbacks between the hydrologic and carbon cycles and the vulnerability of the terrestrial carbon sinks and pools.
4. Produce a global spatially explicit carbon balance, including its component fluxes in form of regional statistics and maps.