The Role of Land-Cover Change in the High Latitude Ecosystems: Implications for the Global Carbon Cycle

The land cover of northern boreal regions is likely to change substantially during the next century because of disturbances related to climate change, fire, logging, and insects. Changes in land cover of high latitude regions may potentially affect the earth's climate system by influencing the global carbon cycle. In our proposal (LCLUC-0016) we proposed a study focused on Alaska to develop a prototype spatially explicit modeling framework capable of using satellite-derived data to estimate how changes in land cover cause changes in ecosystem carbon storage at high latitudes. Our strategy for this study involves four tasks: (1) development of spatially explicit contemporary land-cover data sets in Alaska (2) development of transient spatially explicit land-cover data sets for the historical satellite record in Alaska (3) development of a successional biogeochemical model and (4) application of the modeling framework for estimating the consequences of land-cover change on terrestrial metabolism in retrospective, contemporary, and prognostic analyses. This report summarizes progress for the second performance period of the project (15 April 1998 - 14 February 2000). We focus separately on progress related to the spatial analysis of historical land cover change and on the development and application of the modeling framework.