Link to RS data

Integrating satellite RS data into the olive system

The major deficiency of the integrated ecosystem modeling (EM)/GIS approach is the need for extensive weather and edaphic factor data to drive the models, and hence a major achievement of this project is to link EM/GIS technology with increasingly reliable, high resolution down-scaled fields for assessing on-ground ecosystem-level problems over large geographical areas such as the Mediterranean Basin.

For example, olive system dynamics across the Mediterranean basin were driven by data for the period 1958-1967 and 1988-1997 generated by a regional coupled system (PROTHEUS, see http://clima.casaccia.enea.it/PROTHEUS/) composed of the RegCM3 atmospheric regional model and the MITgcm ocean model coupled using the OASIS3 coupler (for details see Artale et al. 2009). Lateral boundary conditions for the RegCM3 simulations are supplied by 6-hourly large scale horizontal wind component, temperature, specific humidity and surface pressure. The boundary conditions for the climate period (1958-1997) came from the ERA-40 project that reanalyzed meteorological observations using the weather forecast model of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (http://www.ecmwf.int/) and all available surface, upper-air and satellite observations.

PROTHEUS was used to down-scale the ERA-40 dataset from the previously available 125 km grid to a 30 km grid resulting in 4,401 grid points with daily weather for the two decades in the geographic domain of the analysis. Weather variables used to drive the olive-olive fly dynamics models include daily maximum and minimum temperature at 2m and solar radiation. Rainfall, daily run of wind at 10m and relative humidity were used to compute soil water balance.

Because the PROTHEUS present climate dataset is based on all available satellite observations (i.e. satellite remote sensing data), its integration into the EM/GIS system can be considered a first link to RS data.

Figure. Average cumulative olive fly pupae (season-1 tree-1) (a, b) and percent fruit attacked (e, f) in the Mediterranean Basin for the period 1958-1967 and 1988-1997.

References

Artale, V., S. Calmanti, A. Carillo, A. Dell’Aquila, M. Hermann, G. Pisacane, P. M. Ruti, G. Sannino, M. V. Striglia, F. Giorgi, X. Bi, J. S. Pal, and S. Rauscher. 2009. An atmosphere-ocean regional climate model for the mediterranean area: assessment of a present climate simulation. Climate Dynamics 35:721-740.