NACP Breakout Session: North American Terrestrial Carbon Monitoring and Decision Support Capabilities (combined from CMS and CarboNA proposals) Organized by: George Hurtt Richard Birdsey Werner Kurz Allison Thomson Rick Van Schoik Rodrigo Vargas

North American Terrestrial Carbon Monitoring and Decision Support Capabilities Objective: discuss integrated carbon monitoring and related decision-support capabilities for North America Discussion: how to coordinate monitoring activities among agencies of the 3 countries

North American Terrestrial Carbon Monitoring and Decision Support Capabilities Key decision-support questions for carbon management (Allison Thompson) Data and model requirements to support carbon monitoring and management (Werner Kurz) NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System (George Hurtt) North American Carbon Program (CarboNA) and supporting tri-lateral programs (Rich Birdsey) Current satellite assets and asset pipeline (Marc Imhoff/ Diane Wickland)

Possible Discussion Questions: how to coordinate monitoring activities among agencies of the 3 countries To what extent is an integrated carbon monitoring capability needed? Or is a collection of activities occurring in parallel sufficient for science? How can different agencies within country, and different countries, best collaborate for an integrated carbon monitoring capability? What CMS capabilities do we have together currently, in the next 3-5 years, and longer term? Are there new emergent CMS capabilities that can integrate current assets in novel ways, or by leveraging new assets? Are there critical gaps in our combined CMS capabilities? How can they be addressed? How can monitoring and models best be combined in context of CMS for improved science, and policy relevant projection capability?

Discussion (1) Emphasis. Systems should focus on policy and management relevant observations, but also be comprehensive to track entire system including feedbacks from natural system. Resolution. Resolution requirements vary for both scientific considerations, and policy considerations. Different systems/processes have different scales of heterogeneity/variability, and different policy discussions have different resolution requirements. Continuity. Data continuity and baselines are important for change detection and tracking. Satellite asset pipeline generally promising, but challenges for data continuity need to be met.

Discussion (2) Uncertainties. Quantitative estimates of uncertainties are an extremely important requirement for actionable information, yet not widely produced or available. Activity data composite. Important to develop data and data processing systems and infrastructure capable of event detection, data comparison, and integration into decision support steps/models. Should there be DIPs? National Integration. Systems should include and integrate measurements form multiple agencies and domains (e.g. remote sensing, forest inventory, atmospheric sampling,…).

Discussion (3) International Integration. Each country has needs for national reporting and thus own information base. But a single integrated system would provide a consistent scientific basis for policy decisions between countries. Potential to address this with a shared open source framework, national systems with shared components and shared data standards. Harmonization. Establish a mechanism to provide a modest amount of funding to facilitate three countries working together to harmonize carbon monitoring across North America. Continued Cooperation. Have regular discussions about monitoring and decision support under tri-lateral and bi-lateral organizations such as CarboNA and CEC.