NSF Org:	AGS Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences
Recipient:	THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
Initial Amendment Date:	May 29, 2008
Latest Amendment Date:	May 29, 2008
Award Number:	0750145
Award Instrument:	Standard Grant
Program Manager:	Liming Zhou AGS  Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences GEO  Directorate for Geosciences
Start Date:	June 1, 2008
End Date:	April 30, 2010 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount:	$239,998.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date:	$239,998.00
Funds Obligated to Date:	FY 2008 = $48,955.00
History of Investigator:	Lixin Lu (Principal Investigator) lixin.lu@colostate.edu Roger Pielke (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office:	University of Colorado at Boulder 3100 MARINE ST Boulder CO  US  80309-0001 (303)492-6221
Sponsor Congressional District:	02
Primary Place of Performance:	University of Colorado at Boulder 3100 MARINE ST Boulder CO  US  80309-0001
Primary Place of Performance Congressional District:	02
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI):	SPVKK1RC2MZ3
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s):	Climate & Large-Scale Dynamics
Primary Program Source:	01000809DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s):	0000, OTHR
Program Element Code(s):	574000
Award Agency Code:	4900
Fund Agency Code:	4900
Assistance Listing Number(s):	47.050

ABSTRACT

Despite significant enhancements in observational capability, substantial uncertainties remain in surface fluxes of carbon and water due to the lack of a single, consistent framework that models both the carbon and water cycles to make use of new observations, reflecting the disciplinary separation between the hydrological and carbon sciences. The investigators will develop an analysis system that simultaneously quantifies regional-scale carbon and water fluxes by combining observations from numerous aircraft campaigns, satellite sensors, and ground-based platforms with state-of-the-art models of the atmosphere and land surface. The objectives are to quantify and significantly reduce uncertainties in past and future estimates of surface carbon and water fluxes and extract information on the carbon-water cycles from simultaneous use of multiple data streams.

The integrated forward and inverse modeling framework will be anchored to both carbon- and hydrologic observations. First, the investigators will implement a forward modeling system SiBRAMS over a North American domain, which is centered over the WLEF eddy covariance measurement tower where a number of support satellite towers are available, to facilitate the gathering of observational information for model evaluation and improvement. Second, they will build the joint carbon-water inversion system by (a) adding water and its atmospheric sources/sinks to STILT-based inversion system, (b) examining errors resulting from linear approximation in carbon-water inversion, (c) conducting initial inversion analysis of joint carbon-water fluxes, and (d) comparing inversion results with well-constraint observations from IHOP and COBRA experiments.

Main deliverables from this project include the development of an analysis framework, which includes both forward and inverse models and makes use of both carbon- and hydrologically related observations, and estimates of mutually-consistent carbon and water fluxes over a North American domain centered around WLEF tower.

Broad impacts of this project are educational and in the potential to bridge the hydrology-carbon communities and foster new research directions.

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