Spatiotemporal patterns of primary productivity derived from remote sensing and flux measurements

Forest ecosystem plays an important role in regulating the global climate by serving as the primary carbon pool for atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforestation and forest degradation could pose a serious threat on the global emission of greenhouse gases, and this has been declared as the critical issue for United Nation's REDD programme. Under the threat of global warming and climate change, it is critical to quantify the mechanism of carbon flux in order to locate the so-called missing carbon sink and to identify potential strategies for mitigation. With complex ecosystem functions and uncertainty of climate change, both the micro-and macroscopic behavior of carbon flow and its influencing factors have to be systematically studied. There are consequently significant national and international efforts to develop a carbon monitoring system, such as the National Forest Carbon Monitoring, Accounting and Reporting System developed by Canada government, and National Carbon Accounting System by Australian government. These systems aims to tracking and forecasting land based emissions and removals of greenhouse gases from land-use changes, livestock and crop production, and disturbance events such as deforestation, afforestation, and natural disturbances. Based on synergic analysis of data from detailed forest inventory, remote sensing, and ecosystem modeling, the accounting results are used to monitor forest and carbon cycles, and are reported internationally.