A new $26-million NASA project led by a University of Michigan
researcher aims to help clarify how ecosystems exchange carbon
with the atmosphere, an important piece of missing knowledge in
the quest to understand, predict, and adapt to climate change.
The project's goal is to help determine whether the North
American continent is a net source or sink of carbon.
Researchers from U-M, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Harvard
University, MIT, Oregon State University, NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Purdue
University are taking part. The AirMOSS radar will be packaged
in a small pod (bottom left) carried by a Glufstream aircraft
(top left). On the right, a possible pod layout is shown with
the electronics bay and location of the electronics subsystems.
Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Click image above for
higher resolution. Over the next five years, a radar instrument
called the Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and
Subsurface (AirMOSS) will collect