Principal Investigator
Scott Goetz (Science Lead)
Collaborators
Charles Miller (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Peter Griffith (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), Mike Falkowski (NASA Headquarters Terrestrial Ecology Program Scientist), Hank Margolis (NASA Headquarters Terrestrial Ecology Program Manager), ABoVE Science Team.
Overview
ABoVE is a large-scale, NASA-led study of environmental change, including climate change, in Arctic & boreal regions, and the implications for ecological systems and society. The overarching ABoVE science question is:
“How vulnerable or resilient are ecosystems and society to environmental change in the Arctic and boreal region of western North America?”
NAU Professor Goetz is the Lead of the ABoVE Science Team, as well as Principal Investigator for a specific ABoVE project, “Mapping and Modeling Attributes of an Arctic-Boreal Biome Shift.” ABoVE field campaigns are taking place across Alaska and western Canada, with a wide range of interdisciplinary science objectives designed to address ecosystem and societal vulnerability, or resilience, to environmental changes ongoing and expected in the region.
The ABoVE Science Team is organized around working groups (WGs) focused on vegetation, permafrost and hydrology, disturbance, carbon dynamics, wildlife and ecosystem services, and modeling. Additional WGs focus on airborne science, stakeholder engagement, geospatial products, and other themes. All are supplemented by infrastructure activities including data management, cloud computing, laboratory, and field support. Although organized by disciplinary WGs, ABoVE research broadly focuses on the complex interdependencies and feedbacks across disciplines. Ultimately, ABoVE aims to improve our understanding of the consequences of environmental changes occurring across the study domain, our ability to quantify and monitor land-atmosphere exchanges and climate feedbacks, as well as increase our confidence in making projections of the ecosystem responses, resiliency, and vulnerability to changes taking place both within and outside the domain. ABoVE also seeks to build a lasting legacy of collaboration through an expanded knowledge base, provision of key datasets to a broader network of researchers and resource managers, and the development of data products and knowledge designed to foster decision support and applied research partnerships with broad societal relevance.
ABoVE is now in it’s third and final phase. The project has accomplished a remarkable amount over the course of 10 years, revolutionizing our understanding of Arctic/Boreal regions and how they are responding to climate change. To learn more about the impressive work that has, and continues to, take place through ABoVE, please visit the ABoVE/NASA website.
Funding
This work is supported in part by the NASA Terrestrial Ecology Program.
Related publications
Please see a list of ABoVE publications. A focus collection of Environmental Research Letters on Resiliency and Vulnerability of Arctic and Boreal Ecosystems to Environmental Change will also remain open to submissions over the next decade, capturing some of the research output of ABoVE as it progresses.