Brian Dunbar

Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

April 22, 1994
(Phone: 202/358-1547)

Allen Kenitzer
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
(Phone: 301/286-2806)

RELEASE: 94-65

50 SCIENTISTS STUDY CANADIAN FORESTS' IMPACT ON CLIMATE

CHANGE

U.S., Canadian and European scientists have begun the second

phase of a detailed ecological study of the forests of Canada and
the role these forests play in climate change.

The Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) is a

large-scale, ground-based and remote-sensing investigation of how
the forests and the atmosphere exchange energy, heat, water,
carbon dioxide and other trace gases. The goal of BOREAS is to
better understand these exchanges and to improve computer models
of these processes, allowing scientists to anticipate the effects
of climate change on the region and across planet Earth.

From April 11 to May 2, approximately 50 scientists will study

the forests during the annual snowmelt, concentrating on processes
in the soil, vegetation and lower Earth atmosphere as the snow
melts and Earth's surface warms up.

The second of five intensive campaigns that make up BOREAS, the

Focused Field Campaign-Thaw (FFC-T) will take advantage of the
just completed, first flight of the Space Radar Laboratory (SRL).
Carried aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, SRL repeatedly imaged
the BOREAS ground sites allowing scientists to compare the
spaceborne data with their readings from ground and aircraft
investigations.

BOREAS and SRL are components of NASA's Mission to Planet

Earth, the agency's coordinated, long-term program to study the
Earth as the single environmental system it is. Mission to Planet
Earth will combine ground-based, aircraft and satellite data
gathered to investigate how Earth's global environment is changing
and to distinguish human-induced changes from natural changes.
Mission to Planet Earth data, which will be distributed to
researchers worldwide, will help people and governments make
informed decisions about how they are affecting the environment.
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Of primary interest in the BOREAS thaw campaign is how the

sun's energy heats the vegetation, the snow and the underlying
soil to produce melting and release gases, including carbon
dioxide and methane, into the atmosphere. Increasing atmospheric
concentrations of these gases may affect the Earth's climate and
weather.

The collected data will be processed and stored at NASA's

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., for analysis over the
next 3 years by the 85 BOREAS science teams. The results will be
used to improve models of the global environment, especially how
the Earth's climate and vegetation will respond to global change.
Global weather-prediction models also should benefit from this
work.

Specialized equipment will be used to measure the exchanges of

heat, radiation, water and carbon dioxide between the surface and
the atmosphere, while aircraft are used to take high-resolution
images of the study sites as Earth- observing satellites pass
over. Data from the U.S. Landsat, NOAA and GOES satellites and
the French SPOT satellites will be used. NASA aircraft -- a
C-130, DC-8 and a high-altitude ER-2 aircraft, managed by NASA's
Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif., _ also will overfly
the sites with remote-sensing instruments.

Participating agencies in the United States include NASA, the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National
Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Forest
Service and the Environmental Protection Agency. Canadian
participants include the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, the
Canadian Forest Service of Natural Resources Canada, Environment
Canada, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council,
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the National Research
Council. BOREAS contributes to each country's Global Change
Research Program.

- end -

Note to Editors: An image taken by the Space Radar Laboratory of

the BOREAS ground site is available to news media from NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., Phone: 818/354-5011.
The image is available electronically to the general public over
the Internet at the address JPLINFO.JPL.NASA.GOV.