The SIBERIA-II project, greenhouse gas accounting and the global project context

The current understanding of the part that the boreal region plays in carbon flux and ultimately in climate change is poor, partly because of the lack of information on disturbance (fires and logging), freeze-thaw transitions (especially with respect to permafrost) and overall vegetation distribution, and party because all of these issues have never been addressed before in an integrated manner. The main objectives of the EC-project SIBERIA-II are the integration and combination of multi-sensor remotely sensed data and ecological regional models in order to assess the impact of terrestrial biota on the budget of major greenhouse gases (GHGs) in Northern Eurasia and the demonstration of viability of full carbon accounting (including CO₂, CO, CH₄, N₂O, NO_x) using Dynamic Vegetation Models (DVMs) and multi-sensor Earth Observation (EO) instruments.