Global Monitoring of Terrestrial Chlorophyll Fluorescence from Space: Status and Potential for Carbon Cycle Research

Abstract:

Gross primary production (GPP), or the amount of atmospheric CO2 fixed by vegetation through photosynthesis, represents the largest carbon flux between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere. Despite its importance, large-scale estimates of GPP remain highly uncertain for some terrestrial ecosystems. In this context, measurements of sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), which is emitted in the 650-850nm spectral range by the photosynthetic apparatus of green plants, have the potential to provide a new view on vegetation photosynthesis.

Global monitoring of SIF from space have been achieved in the last years by means of a number of atmospheric spectrometers, which have turned out to provide the necessary spectral and radiometric sensitivity for SIF retrieval. The first global measurements of SIF were achieved in 2011 from spectra acquired by the Japanese GOSAT mission. This breakthorugh was followed by retrievals from the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2) instruments onboard MetOp-A and MetOp-B, which enable a continuous spatial sampling, and lately from ENVISAT/SCIAMACHY. This observational scenario is completed by the first SIF data from the NASA-JPL OCO-2 mission (launched in July 2014) and the upcoming Copernicus' Sentinel 5-Precursor to be launched by early 2016. OCO-2 and TROPOMI offer the possibility of monitoring SIF globally with a 100-fold improvement in spatial and temporal resolution with respect to GOSAT, GOME-2 and SCIAMACHY.

In this contribution, we will provide an overview of global SIF monitoring and will illustrate the potential of SIF data to improve our knowledge of vegetation photosynthesis and GPP at the synoptic scale. We will show examples of ongoing research exploiting SIF data for an improved monitoring of photosynthetic activity at different ecosystems, highlighting the usefulness of SIF to constrain estimates of CO2 uptake by vegetation through photosynthesis.