Contrasts in Wet Season-Dry Season Carbon Fluxes Over Amazon Basin Based on SVATS Modeling and GOES-Retrieved SRB and Rainfall

A major focus of the LBA experiment now taking place in Brazil is an assessment of the carbon budget and the carbon sequestering capacity of the large scale forest-pasture system that dominates the Amazônia landscape. This is not a straightforward process and generally requires a combination of in situ measurements, remotely sensed measurements from space, and some type of SVATS model, minimally capable of simulating the details of photosynthesis and respiration. In this study we describe and test a carbon flux model-based retrieval algorithm applied to the large scale Amazônia region. A detailed SVATS model including a carbon assimilation module, is forced with GOES-retrieved surface radiation budget fluxes and rainfall, two major forcing parameters that cannot be well represented at the large scale using sparse in situ surface measurements. The major focus of this first set of LBA calculations is to compare and contrast the wet and dry season net carbon fluxes, and quantify how much of net carbon flux variability is forced by cloud-precipitation processes versus all other process (e.g., surface meteorological conditions of temperature and humidity, biogenic features of the canopy, and aerosol loading due to burning practices).