Carbon dioxide accumulating in our atmosphere is one of the most important environmental threats of our time. Humans and changing climate, separately or in concert, have affected global vegetation, biogeochemical cycles, biophysical processes, and primary production. Recent studies have found temporary carbon stores in North American vegetation due to land-cover land-use change, but have yet to characterize regional mechanisms across the continent. This research implemented multi-resolution remote sensing data, coupled with ecosystem simulations, to determine the importance of fine-scale disturbance in our understanding of dynamics that drove and/or perturbed carbon sequestration in North America from 1982 through 2005. The research [...]
