Constraining a land cover map with satellite-based aboveground biomass estimates over Africa

Marie, Guillaume; Luyssaert, B. Sebastiaan; Dardel, Cecile; Le Toan, Thuy; Bouvet, Alexandre; Mermoz, Stéphane; Villard, Ludovic; Bastrikov, Vladislav; Peylin, Philippe

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2599-2022

Articles | Volume 15, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2599-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2599-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 6

Methods for assessment of models

|

30 Mar 2022

Methods for assessment of models |

| 30 Mar 2022

Constraining a land cover map with satellite-based aboveground biomass estimates over Africa

Guillaume Marie, B. Sebastiaan Luyssaert, Cecile Dardel, Thuy Le Toan, Alexandre Bouvet, Stéphane Mermoz, Ludovic Villard, Vladislav Bastrikov, and Philippe Peylin

Data sets

R-script_African_biomass: R scipt + ORCHIDEE Guillaume Marie, B. Sebastiaan Luyssaert, Cecile Dardel, Thuy Le Toan, Alexandre Bouvet, Stéphane Mermoz, Ludovic Villard, Vladislav Bastrikov, and Philippe Peylin https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4785328

Model code and software

R-script_African_biomass: R scipt + ORCHIDEE Guillaume Marie, B. Sebastiaan Luyssaert, Cecile Dardel, Thuy Le Toan, Alexandre Bouvet, Stéphane Mermoz, Ludovic Villard, Vladislav Bastrikov, and Philippe Peylin https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4785328

Short summary

Most Earth system models make use of vegetation maps to initialize a simulation at global scale. Satellite-based biomass map estimates for Africa were used to estimate cover fractions for the 15 land cover classes. This study successfully demonstrates that satellite-based biomass maps can be used to better constrain vegetation maps. Applying this approach at the global scale would increase confidence in assessments of present-day biomass stocks.