Monitoring of biogenic emissions using remote sensing

The emission of biogenic compounds has implications for both air quality and climate stability through either direct effects, or through changes they cause in atmospheric chemistry. Some important compounds currently being studied are the so-called biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC) that include isoprene, monoterpene and methane. Until recently, the role of remote sensing in BVOC estimation was limited to the classification of land-cover types. However, remote sensing data can provide much more information and great strides have been made in the derivation of information from satellite data related to vegetation that could then be coupled with models of biogenic compound emission in order to make more accurate flux estimations. The German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) extracts information from remotely sensed data about landuse/landcover, LAI, LST and (in the future) PAR from the operational processing of remotely sensed data. When coupled with models, this data will allow for the characterization of ground pixels in terms of emissions of BVOCs, and will lead to the ability to improve estimates of these emissions on a continental scale.