We were lucky to have a NOAA intern, Dakota Smith, spend the summer with our
CMMAP internship program. Dakota worked with research scientist Ian Baker
studying
seasonal variations of
water, energy, and carbon fluxes across a moisture gradient.
In an attempt to understand the productive grasslands of West Africa, various
techniques are used, including; analysis of eddy covariance data collected by
meteorological flux towers and analysis of surface character data collected by
satellites. Unfortunately, this area has sparse surface data collection due to
political conflicts. Along the same lines, the quality and quantity of satellite
observations of surface character data decreases due to prolonged periods of
cloud cover during the rainy season. During periods of clear skies, satellite
data known as fluorescence can be used as an indicator of the vegetation
productivity. Fluorescence is light re-emitted from the chlorophyll within
plants. It has been proven that fluorescence yield correlates with
photosynthetic yield when plants are exposed to stress.
Due to the overall lack of surface and remotely-sensed data during the wet
season, the specific time and reasons grasslands become green and productive is
not completely understood. In this project, Dakota used the Simple Biosphere
Model (SiB) as an alternative to observe the details of the browning and
greening in the African grasslands. In the end, fluorescence data is used
as a comparison to SiB.
Dakota is from Eldersburg, Maryland. He is a junior studying meteorology at
Penn State. Dakota is interested in atmospheric surface interactions and
environmental meteorology. Outside of school, he enjoys fishing, crabbing,
hiking, snowboarding and biking and while at CMMAP this summer, he took up
disc golf!
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