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Currently, information on forest biomass is available from a mixture of sources, including in-situ measurements, national forest inventories, administrative-level statistics, model outputs and regional satellite products. These data tend to be regional or national, based on different methodologies and not easily accessible. One of the few maps available is the Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO 2005) which contains aggregated country-level information about the growing stock, biomass and carbon stock in forests for 229 countries and territories. This paper presents a technique to downscale the aggregated results of the FRA2005 from the country level to a half degree global spatial dataset containing forest growing stock; above/below-ground biomass, dead wood and total forest biomass; and above-ground, below-ground, dead wood, litter and soil carbon. In all cases, the number of countries providing data is incomplete. For those countries with missing data, values were estimated using regression equations based on a downscaling model. The downscaling method is derived using a relationship between net primary productivity (NPP) and biomass and the relationship between human impact and biomass assuming a decrease in biomass with an increased level of human activity. The results, presented here, represent one of the first attempts to produce a consistent global spatial database at half degree resolution containing forest growing stock, biomass and carbon stock values. All results from the methodology described in this paper are available online at www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/FOR/.

Elevated CO2 (eCO2) experiments provide critical information to quantify the effects of rising CO2 on vegetation1–6. Many eCO2 experiments suggest that nutrient limitations modulate the local magnitude of the eCO2 effect on plant biomass1,3,5, but the global extent of these limitations has not been empirically quantified, complicating projections of the capacity of plants to take up CO27,8. Here, we present a data-driven global quantification of the eCO2 effect on biomass based on 138 eCO2 experiments. The strength of CO2 fertilization is primarily driven by nitrogen (N) in ~65% of global vegetation and by phosphorus (P) in ~25% of global vegetation, with N- or P-limitation modulated by mycorrhizal association. Our approach suggests that CO2 levels expected by 2100 can potentially enhance plant biomass by 12 ± 3% above current values, equivalent to 59 ± 13 PgC. The global-scale response to eCO2 we derive from experiments is similar to past changes in greenness9 and biomass10 with rising CO2, suggesting that CO2 will continue to stimulate plant biomass in the future despite the constraining effect of soil nutrients. Our research reconciles conflicting evidence on CO2 fertilization across scales and provides an empirical estimate of the biomass sensitivity to eCO2 that may help to constrain climate projections.

Vegetation impacts on ecosystem functioning are mediated by mycorrhizas, plant-fungal associations formed by most plant species. Ecosystems dominated by distinct mycorrhizal types differ strongly in their biogeochemistry. Quantitative analyses of mycorrhizal impacts on ecosystem functioning are hindered by the scarcity of information on mycorrhizal distributions. Here we present global, high-resolution maps of vegetation biomass distribution by dominant mycorrhizal associations. Arbuscular, ectomycorrhizal, and ericoid mycorrhizal vegetation store, respectively, 241 ± 15, 100 ± 17, and 7 ± 1.8 GT carbon in aboveground biomass, whereas non-mycorrhizal vegetation stores 29 ± 5.5 GT carbon. Soil carbon stocks in both topsoil and subsoil are positively related to the community-level biomass fraction of ectomycorrhizal plants, though the strength of this relationship varies across biomes. We show that human-induced transformations of Earth's ecosystems have reduced ectomycorrhizal vegetation, with potential ramifications to terrestrial carbon stocks. Our work provides a benchmark for spatially explicit and globally quantitative assessments of mycorrhizal impacts on ecosystem functioning and biogeochemical cycling.

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is a key asset for tropospheric monitoring. Currently, GNSS meteorology relies primarily on geodetic-grade stations. However, such stations are too costly to be densely deployed, which limits the contribution of GNSS to tropospheric monitoring. In 2016, Google released the raw GNSS measurement application programming interface for smartphones running on Android version 7.0 and higher. Since nowadays there are billions of Android smartphones worldwide, utilizing those devices for atmospheric monitoring represents a remarkable scientific opportunity. In this study, smartphone GNSS data collected in Germany as part of the Application of Machine Learning Technology for GNSS IoT Data Fusion (CAMALIOT) crowdsourcing campaign in 2022 were utilized to investigate this idea. Approximately twenty thousand raw GNSS observation files were collected there during the campaign. First, a dedicated data processing pipeline was established that consists of two major parts: machine learning (ML)-based data selection and ionosphere-free Precise Point Positioning (PPP)-based Zenith Total Delay (ZTD) estimation. The proposed method was validated with a dedicated smartphone data collection experiment conducted on the rooftop of the ETH campus. The results confirmed that ZTD estimates of mm-level precision could be achieved with smartphone data collected in an open-sky environment. The impacts of observation time span and utilization of multi-GNSS observations on ZTD estimation were also investigated. Subsequently, the crowdsourced data from Germany were processed by PPP with the ionospheric delays interpolated using observations from surrounding SAPOS (Satellite Positioning Service of the German State Survey) GNSS stations. The ZTDs derived from ERA5 and an ML-based ZTD product served as benchmarks. The results revealed that an accuracy of better than 10 mm can be achieved by utilizing selected high-quality crowdsourced smartphone data. This study marks the first successful demonstration of high-precision ZTD determination with crowdsourced smartphone GNSS data and reveals success factors and current limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is a key asset for tropospheric monitoring. Currently, GNSS meteorology relies primarily on geodetic-grade stations. However, such stations are too costly to be densely deployed, which limits the contribution of GNSS to tropospheric monitoring. In 2016, Google released the raw GNSS measurement application programming interface for smartphones running on Android version 7.0 and higher. Since nowadays there are billions of Android smartphones worldwide, utilizing those devices for atmospheric monitoring represents a remarkable scientific opportunity. In this study, smartphone GNSS data collected in Germany as part of the Application of Machine Learning Technology for GNSS IoT Data Fusion (CAMALIOT) crowdsourcing campaign in 2022 were utilized to investigate this idea. Approximately twenty thousand raw GNSS observation files were collected there during the campaign. First, a dedicated data processing pipeline was established that consists of two major parts: machine learning (ML)-based data selection and ionosphere-free Precise Point Positioning (PPP)-based Zenith Total Delay (ZTD) estimation. The proposed method was validated with a dedicated smartphone data collection experiment conducted on the rooftop of the ETH campus. The results confirmed that ZTD estimates of mm-level precision could be achieved with smartphone data collected in an open-sky environment. The impacts of observation time span and utilization of multi-GNSS observations on ZTD estimation were also investigated. Subsequently, the crowdsourced data from Germany were processed by PPP with the ionospheric delays interpolated using observations from surrounding SAPOS (Satellite Positioning Service of the German State Survey) GNSS stations. The ZTDs derived from ERA5 and an ML-based ZTD product served as benchmarks. The results revealed that an accuracy of better than 10 mm can be achieved by utilizing selected high-quality crowdsourced smartphone data. This study marks the first successful demonstration of high-precision ZTD determination with crowdsourced smartphone GNSS data and reveals success factors and current limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]