KECK INSTITUTE FOR SPACE STUDIES

     

Workshop: Managing Soil Organic Carbon for Climate Change Mitigation - Multiscale Quantification Through Remote Sensing, AI and Biogeochemical Models - Part II

February 26 - March 1, 2024
California Institute of Technology - Pasadena, CA 91125

Workshop Overview:

The overall goal of this KISS study on “Managing Soil Organic Carbon for Climate Change Mitigation“ is to envision a state-of-the-art, big data & model platform, that is both distributed and community-based, and that can serve as a foundation for high quality-low cost quantification and analyses of soil carbon and soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agricultural land use, across scales from farm- to national-level. Development and implementation of this technology is critical to enable agricultural soils to play a significant role in CO2 removal and to reduce non-CO2 GHG emissions from soils.

The first workshop identified critical elements of such a platform and reviewed the current state-of-the-art for several key technologies. We convened an expert group of scientists to capture their collective expertise and diverse viewpoints, in order to converge towards a unified systems approach to achieve high quality-low cost quantification.

The objectives for workshop #2 will be to address technical challenges and identify opportunities for moving forward on each of four critical components:

  1. tailored, multi-scale remote sensing data systems of land surface characteristics and land use activities,
  2. process-based and hybrid AI models to predict soil carbon stock changes and soil GHG emissions,
  3. optimal ground-based monitoring and experimental site networks, and
  4. systems integration.
A key outcome of our workshop will be to enhance our collective understanding of how these individual elements, with their respective enhancements, can be synergistically employed to fully capture the complex processes that contribute to the sequestration of carbon in soils and to the reduction of GHG emissions, aiming for near carbon neutrality in agriculture in the foreseeable future. A key outcome of this workshop will be the assessment of the technical hurdles inherent to each component and to clearly design a forward path that incorporates feasibility assessments, technological advancements and considering strategic investments.


Monday, February 26, 2024
Keck Center - Think Tank, Room 155

Time
Event
Speaker
8:00 - 8:30

Institute Opens - FREE THINK TIME

8:30 - 9:00

Coffee and Refreshments at Keck Center

Pick up badge and welcome packet, find seat in the Think Tank

9:00 - 9:05

Welcome

Janet Seid

9:05 - 10:00

Workshop Logistics

Participant Introductions

Michele Judd
10:00 - 10:30

Recap of Workshop #1:

Way Forward and Study Vision, Goals, and Expectations for Workshop #2

Team Leads
10:30 - 11:00 Break
11:00 - 12:00 Finalize Workshop Goals via Plenary Discussion Team Leads
12:00 - 12:30

Brief Topic Framing Talk (12 mins + 3 mins)

- Nitrous Oxide Flux

- Ground Truth Soil Carbon Measurements

Phil Robertson

Stephen Ogle

12:30 - 2:00 Group Picture and Lunch at the Athenaeum
2:00 - 2:15

Rules for breakout groups

Overview of breakout groups

Michele Judd

Team Leads

2:15 - 3:45

Breakout #1:

Topic: Identify the Technology/Data/Info that can best be deployed now to advance MRV. Suggest priority rankings (what is most valuable, most mature) and identify sources

 

Groups:

Breakout Group #1: Remote Sensing (RS)

Breakout Group #2: Modeling and Prediction (MOD)

Breakout Group #3: Experiments/Ground Measurements (EXP)

All
3:45 - 4:15 Break All
4:15 - 5:00 Breakout Groups Report Out (10 mins each +5 min QA)

Breakout Groups

5:00 - 5:30 Discuss draft of dinal report/paper

Team Leads

5:30 - 6:00

Pack up and walk to the Athenaeum

Team Leads/KISS tag up

All

KISS/Team Leads

6:00 Dinner at the Athenaeum

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Keck Center - Think Tank, Room 155

Time
Event
Speaker
8:00 - 8:30 Institute Opens - FREE THINK TIME
8:30 - 9:00 Enjoy coffee and refreshments in the Keck Center courtyard
9:00 - 9:15 Logistics and Team Lead Goals for the Day

KISS

Team Leads

9:15 - 10:00 USDA Update Bill Hohenstein
10:00 - 10:30

Brief Topic Framing Talk (12 mins + 3 mins)

- Remote Sensing Uncertainties

- CARDAMOM - Model Data Assimilation

Nimrod Carmon

Eren Bilir

10:30 - 11:00 Break
11:00 - 11:15 Overview of Breakout Session #2 Team Leads
11:15 - 12:45

Breakout #2:

Topic: Working off of the results of the previous breakout session, for the 'prioritized' technologies, discuss the relative uncertainties, how well are they quantified, what are the biggest limitations?

 

Groups:

Breakout Group #1: Remote Sensing (RS)

Breakout Group #2: Modeling and Prediction (MOD)

Breakout Group #3: Experiments/Ground Measurements (EXP)

All
12:45 - 2:15

Free Time / Lunch on your own

(or optionally stay in the courtyard and grab a bite to eat from KISS and keep collaborating!)

2:15 - 3:00 Breakout Groups Report Out (10 mins each + 5 min Q+A) Breakout Groups
3:00 - 3:15 Overview of Breakout Session #3 Team Leads
3:15 Grab something from the break table and head to your breakout session
3:15 - 4:45

Breakout #3:

Topic: For each WG and all of the technologies discussed to date, what are the priorities and achievable short-term improvements; what are the long-term (10 year) R&D that we think are achievable and worth promoting?

 

Groups:

Breakout Group #1: Remote Sensing (RS)

Breakout Group #2: Modeling and Prediction (MOD)

Breakout Group #3: Experiments/Ground Measurements (EXP)

All
4:45 - 5:30 Breakout Groups Report Out (10 mins each = 5 min Q+A) Breakout Groups
5:30 - 5:45 Recap and Discuss Direction for Day 3 All
5:45 - 6:15

Pack up and make plans for dinner

Team Leads/KISS tag up

All

KISS/Team Leads

6:15 Free Time / Dinner on your own

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Keck Center - Think Tank, Room 155

Time
Event
Speaker
8:00 - 8:30 Institute Opens - FREE THINK TIME
8:30 - 9:00 Enjoy coffee and refreshments in the Keck Center courtyard
9:00 - 9:15 Logistics and Team Lead Goals for the Day

KISS
Team Leads

9:15 - 10:00

Brief Topic Framing Talks

- VMAP

- MME

Dave Schimel

Bruno Basso

10:00 - 10:30 Break
10:30 - 10:45 Overview of Breakout #4 Team Leads
10:45 - 12:30

Breakout #4:

Topic: Critical aspects and path forward for "systems integration" - both "techinical issues" and "how to implement" (including organization issues/resourcing) as a distributed community/consortium effort (as somewhat analous to other 'community level' modeling and data analyses efforts, e.g.: weather/climate reanalyses, ES modeling (e.g. CMIP), hurricane tracking, AgMIP

 

Groups:

Breakout Group #1: Remote Sensing (RS) + Modeling (MOD)

Breakout Group #2: Remote Sensing (RS) + Experiments/Ground Measurements (EXP)

Breakout Group #3: Modeling (MOD) + Experiements/Ground Measurements (EXP)

All
12:30 - 2:00  Lunch at the Athenaeum
2:00 - 2:45 Breakout Groups Report Out (10 mins each plus 5 min Q+A) Breakout Groups
2:45 - 3:00 Importance of Illustrations - KISS Gallery Michele Judd
3:00 - 3:30 Plenary group discussion of illustrations/figures we want in final report Team Leads / All
3:30 - 4:00 Break
4:00 - 4:30 Group pulse: What are big conclusions so far, what topics need more attention? KISS / All
4:30 - 5:30

Plenary group discussion of what topics need one final breakout focus session tomorrow morning

Team Leads / All
5:30 - 6:00

Pack up and make plans for dinner

Team Leads/KISS tag up

All

KISS/ Team leads

6:00 Dinner on your own

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Keck Center - Think Tank, Room 155

Time
Event
Speaker
8:00 - 8:30

Institute Opens - FREE THINK TIME

8:30 - 9:00

Enjoy coffee and refreshments in the Keck Center courtyard

9:00 - 9:15 Logistics and Team Lead Goals for the Day

KISS
Team Leads

9:15 - 9:30 Overview of Breakout Session #5

All

9:30 - 11:00

Breakout #5:

Topics determined by Thursday plenary session

Groups
as needed Break
11:00 - Noon Group Report outs from Breakout Session #5 All
Noon - 2:00

Free Time / Lunch on your own

2:00 - 3:00 Discussion of Final Report and Report Structure Team Leads
3:00 - 3:30 Define writing assignments All
3:30 - 4:00

Break

4:00 - 5:15 Writing Session #1 Groups/Individuals
5:15 - 5:30 Recap and Discuss Direction for Day 5 Team Leads
5:30 - 6:00 Pack up and walk to the Athenaeum Team Leads/KISS tag up

All

KISS/Team Leads

6:00

Dinner at the Athenaeum


Friday, March 1, 2024

Keck Center - Think Tank, Room 155

Time
Event
Speaker
8:00 - 8:30

Institute Opens - FREE THINK TIME

8:30 - 9:00

Enjoy coffee and refrehsments in the Keck Center courtyard

9:00 - 9:15 Logistics and Team Lead Goals for the Day

KISS

Team Leads

9:15 - 10:00 Discussion on Path Forward for Collaboration, Advocacy throughout the Community and To-Do LIst for Completion of Final Report Groups/Individuals
10:00 - 10:30 Break
10:30 - 11:15 Breakouts on final report images Groups/Individuals
11:15 - 11:45 Group report outs

Teams

11:45 - 12:15

Workshop Next Steps

Team Leads
12:15 - 12:30

Plenary workshop review

KISS
12:30

Formal workshop concludes

12:30 - 1:30

Informal lunch in the Courtyard

1:30 - 3:00

Small Group Collaboration and Writing Session #2

Groups/Individuals
3:00 - 3:30

Break

3:30 - 4:45

Final Writing Session #3

All
4:45 - 5:00

Meet back in Plenary Session for faretheewell and celebration!

All
5:00

All workshop activities conclude


Workshop Participants:

  • Sotirios Archontoulis - Iowa State University
  • Bruno Basso - Michigan State University
  • Teresa Eren Bilir - JPL
  • Renato Braghiere - Caltech
  • David Brown - JPL - Retired
  • Nimrod Carmon - JPL
  • Eric Ceschia - INRAE
  • K. Dana Chadwick - JPL
  • Susan Crow - University of Hawaii Manoa
  • Ellie Ellis - Colorado State University
  • Ames Fowler - Colorado State University
  • Christian Frankenberg - Caltech
  • Sabine Grunwald - University of Florida
  • Kaiyu Guan - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Ryan Hodges - USDA-NRCS
  • Brooke Hunter - Yale University
  • Jyoti Jennewein - USDA-ARS
  • Zhenong Jin - University of Minnesota
  • Steffen Mauceri - JPL
  • Steven Mirsky - USDA-ARS
  • Stephen Ogle - Colorado State University
  • Keith Paustian - Colorado State University
  • Alexandre Renchon - Caltech
  • Joseph Riedel - JPL
  • David Schimel - JPL
  • Evan Thaler - Los Alamos National Laboratory
  • Sheng Wang - Aarhus University
  • Yakun Zhang - Oregon State University