Amazonian Carbon and Biomass Estimates from Ecosystem Demography Model

Ecosystem Demography Model estimates for potential above-ground net primary production, live biomass, and soil carbon in the Brazilian Amazon at 1-degree resolution. The model was forced with ISLSCP I climate data from 1987 and 1988, averaged to represent a single year, and includes effects of natural disturbances like windthrow and fire. Data is provided by ORNL_CLOUD in ASCII and NetCDF formats.

Use Cases

• Mapping regional carbon stocks using the potential average live biomass and soil carbon estimates.
• Analyzing ecosystem productivity patterns via the potential above-ground net primary production (NPP) layer.
• Benchmarking other ecosystem models against these gridded estimates of structure and fluxes.
• Assessing the impact of natural disturbances on Amazonian carbon pools, as the model includes windthrow and fire effects.

Strengths

• Model outputs include three key carbon cycle variables: NPP, live biomass, and soil carbon.
• Data has a defined spatial resolution of 1 degree for the entire Brazilian Amazon region.
• Modeling incorporates effects of natural disturbances, providing a more realistic potential state.

Limitations

• Estimates represent potential vegetation and exclude the effects of human land use, limiting direct applicability to current landscapes.
• Temporal coverage is based on a two-year average (1987-1988), which may not represent long-term climatic conditions.
• Conflicting last updated dates exist across platforms (1988-12-31 vs. 2026-03-13), creating uncertainty about metadata maintenance.

Provenance

Source

ORNL_CLOUD

Collection Method

Generated by the Ecosystem Demography Model (ED) forced with ISLSCP I climate, soil, and land-use data.

Time Range

1987 to 1988

Freshness

2026-03-13 01:03:11.669940

Geography

Brazilian Amazon