Paving the Road to Flex and Biomass: The Land Surface Carbon Constellation Study

Abstract

Remote sensing observations of variables related to vegetation at microwave and optical/infrared wavelengths are presented over three regions in Europe in the Iberian peninsula, northern Finland and central Europe. They include the instrumented sites of Las Majadas, Sodankyla and Reusel. The final goal is to better constrain land carbon cycle models using the complementarities of vegetation optical depth derived at different frequencies from active and passive instruments (related to vegetation water content and biomass) as well as optical data of the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation or solar induced fluorescence, closely linked to photosynthesis. The first results confirm this complementarity. For instance, time series of different variables exhibit positive correlations in some areas and negative correlations in other areas.