The Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group (NTSG) is a research center in the University of Montana's W.A. Franke College of Forestry & Conservation pioneering new approaches for landscape ecological and hydrological studies. A major focus of our research is to understand how vegetation responds to climate variability and influences the water, carbon and energy cycles. NTSG conducts research over a broad range of spatial scales, emphasizing emerging technologies in satellite remote sensing, computational modeling and biophysical theory. We are a leader in the development and application of satellite remote sensing for global environmental assessment and monitoring. NTSG is a NASA Earth Science Information Partner (ESIP), developer and repository for a variety of global land data products from satellite Earth missions, including MODIS (MOD16/17) vegetation productivity and evapotranspiration, AMSR land parameters, and SMAP (L4C) carbon flux products.
Submissions from 2005
Estimation of Surface Freeze-Thaw States Using Microwave Sensors, K. C. McDonald and John S. Kimball
Aggregate Measures of Ecosystem Services: Can We Take the Pulse of Nature?, Laura A. Meyerson, Jill Baron, Jerry M. Melillo, Robert J. Naiman, Robin I. O'Malley, Gordon Orians, Margaret A. Palmer, Alexander S. P. Pfaff, Steven W. Running, and Osvaldo E. Sala
Climate variability, vegetation productivity and people at risk, Cristina Milesi, Hirofumi Hashimoto, Steven W. Running, and Ramakrishna R. Nemani
Mapping and Modeling the Biogeochemical Cycling of Turf Grasses in the United States, Cristina Milesi, Steven W. Running, Christopher D. Elvidge, John B. Dietz, Benjamin T. Tuttle, and Ramakrishna R. Nemani
Usefulness and limits of MODIS GPP for estimating wheat yield, Matthew Clark Reeves, M. Zhao, and Steven W. Running
Global biomass variation and its geodynamic effects, 1982-1998, M. Rodell, B. F. Chao, A. Y. Au, John S. Kimball, and K. C. McDonald
Satellite-Based Analysis of Ecological Controls For Land-Surface Evaporation Resistance, Steven W. Running and John S. Kimball
Site-level evaluation of satellite-based global terrestrial gross primary production and net primary production monitoring, David Turner, William D. Ritts, Warren B. Cohen, Thomas K. Maiersperger, Stith T. Gower, Al A. Kirschbaum, Steven W. Running, Maosheng Zhao, Steve Wofsy, Allison L. Dunn, Beverly E. Law, John L. Campbell, Walter C. Oechel, Hyo Jung Kwon, Tilden Meyers, Eric E. Small, Shirley A. Kurc, and J. A. Gamon
Improvements of the MODIS terrestrial gross and net primary production global data set, Maosheng Zhao, Faith Ann Heinsch, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, and Steven W. Running
Submissions from 2004
The Hydrosphere State (HYDROS) mission concept: An Earth System Pathfinder for global mapping of soil moisture and land freeze/thaw, Dara Entekhabi, Eni G. Njoku, Paul Houser, Michael Spencer, Terence Doiron, Yunjin Kim, Joel Smith, Ralph Girard, Stephane Belair, Wade Crow, Thomas J. Jackson, Yann H. Kerr, John S. Kimball, Randy Koster, Kyle C. McDonald, Peggy E. O'Neill, Terry Pultz, Steven W. Running, Jiancheng Shi, Eric Wood, and Jakob van Zyl
Remote sensing in BOREAS: Lessons learned, J. A. Gamon, K. F. Huemmrich, D. R. Peddle, J. Chen, D. Fuentes, F. G. Hall, John S. Kimball, S. Goetz, J. Gu, K. C. McDonald, J. R. Miller, M. Moghaddam, A. F. Rahman, J.-L. Roujean, E. A. Smith, C. L. Walthall, P. Zarco-Tejada, B. Hu, R. Fernandes, and J. Cihlar
Oak forest carbon and water simulations: model intercomparisons and evaluations against independent data, P. J. Hanson, J. S. Amthor, S. D. Wullschleger, K. B. Wilson, R. F. Grant, A. Hartley, D. Hui, E. R. Hunt Jr., D. W. Johnson, John S. Kimball, A. W. King, Y. Luo, S. G. McNulty, G. Sun, Peter Edmond Thornton, S. Wang, M. Williams, Dennis Baldocchi, and R. M. Cushman
El Niño-Southern Oscillation-Induced Variability in Terrestrial Carbon Cycling, Hirofumi Hashimoto, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, Michael A. White, William M. Jolly, Steve C. Piper, Charles D. Keeling, Ranga B. Myneni, and Steven W. Running
Enhancement of understory productivity by asynchronous phenology with overstory competitors in a temperate deciduous forest, William M. Jolly, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, and Steven W. Running
The effects of spatial aggregation of complex topography on hydro-ecological process simulations within a rugged forest landscape: Development and application of a satellite-based topoclimatic model., S. Kang, D. Lee, and John S. Kimball
Radar remote sensing of the spring thaw transition across a boreal landscape, John S. Kimball, K. C. McDonald, S. Frolking, and Steven W. Running
Satellite radar remote sensing of seasonal growing seasons for boreal and subalpine evergreen forests, John S. Kimball, K. C. McDonald, Steven W. Running, and S. Frolking
Satellite observations of annual variability in terrestrial carbon cycles and seasonal growing seasons at high northern latitudes, John S. Kimball, Maosheng Zhao, Kyle C. McDonald, Faith Ann Heinsch, and Steven W. Running
VEMAP Phase 2 Bioclimatic Database. I. Gridded Historical (20th century) Climate for Modeling Ecosystem Dynamics Across the Conterminous USA, T. G. F. Kittel, N. A. Rosenbloom, J. A. Royle, C. Daly, W. P. Gibson, H. H. Fisher, P. Thornton, D. N. Yates, C. Kaufman, R. McKeown, D. Bachelet, D. S. Schimel, Steven W. Running, and VEMAP2 Participants
Variability in springtime thaw in the terrestrial high latitudes: Monitoring a major control on the biospheric assimilation of atmospheric CO2 with spaceborne microwave remote sensing, Kyle C. McDonald, John S. Kimball, Eni G. Njoku, Reiner Zimmermann, and Maosheng Zhao
Spaceborne microwave remote sensing of seasonal freeze-thaw processes in the terrestrial high latitudes: Relationships with land-atmosphere CO2 exchange, Kyle C. McDonald, John S. Kimball, Maosheng Zhao, Eni G. Njoku, Reiner Zimmermann, and Steven W. Running
Land cover disturbances and feedbacks to the climate system in Canada and Alaska, A. D. McGuire, M. Apps, F. S. Chapin III, R. Dargaville, M. D. Flannigan, Eric Kasischke, David W. Kicklighter, John S. Kimball, W. Kurz, D. J. McRae, Kyle C. McDonald, Jerry M. Melillo, Ranga B. Myneni, B. J. Stocks, D. L. Verbyla, and Q. Zhuang
A Patchy Hierarchy Approach to Modeling Surface and Subsurface Hydrology in Complex Flood-plain Environments, Geoffrey C. Poole, Jack A. Stanford, Steven W. Running, C. A. Frissell, William W. Woessner, and Bonnie Kathleen Ellis
Global Land Data Sets for Next-Generation Biospheric Monitoring, Steven W. Running
A Continuous Satellite-Derived Measure of Global Terrestrial Primary Production, Steven W. Running, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, Faith Ann Heinsch, Maosheng Zhao, Matthew Clark Reeves, and Hirofumi Hashimoto
Integrating remote sensing and ecosystem process models for landscape- to regional-scale analysis of the carbon cycle, David Turner, Scott V. Ollinger, and John S. Kimball
Submissions from 2003
Comparisons of land cover and LAI estimates derived from ETM+ and MODIS for four sites in North America: a quality assessment of 2000/2001 provisional MODIS products, Warren B. Cohen, Thomas K. Maiersperger, Zhiqiang Yang, Stith T. Gower, David Turner, William D. Ritts, Mercedes Berterretche, and Steven W. Running
Effects of precipitation and soil water potential on drought deciduous phenology in the Kalahari, William M. Jolly and Steven W. Running
Topographic and climatic controls on soil respiration in six temperate mixed-hardwood forest slopes, Korea, Sinkyu Kang, Sueyoung Doh, Dongsun Lee, Dowon Lee, Virginia L. Jin, and John S. Kimball
A regional phenology model for detecting onset of greenness in temperate mixed forests, Korea: an application of MODIS leaf area index, Sinkyu Kang, Steven W. Running, Jong-Hwan Lim, Maosheng Zhao, Chan-Ryul Park, and Rachel Andrea Loehman
Assessing the environmental impacts of human settlements using satellite data, Cristina Milesi, Christopher D. Elvidge, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, and Steven W. Running
Assessing the impact of urban land development on net primary productivity in the Southeastern United States, Cristina Milesi, Christopher D. Elvidge, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, and Steven W. Running
Climate-Driven Increases in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 1982 to 1999, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, Charles D. Keeling, Hirofumi Hashimoto, William M. Jolly, Steve C. Piper, Compton J. Tucker, Ranga B. Myneni, and Steven W. Running
Biospheric Monitoring and Ecological Forecasting, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, Michael A. White, Lars Lowell Pierce, Petr Votava, Joseph C. Coughlan, and Steven W. Running
Development of an Evapotranspiration Index from Aqua/MODIS for monitoring surface moisture status., Kenlo Nishida, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, Joseph M. Glassy, and Steven W. Running
An Operational Remote Sensing Algorithm of Land Surface Evaporation, Kenlo Nishida, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, Steven W. Running, and Joseph M. Glassy
Scaling Gross Primary Production (GPP) over boreal and deciduous forest landscapes in support of MODIS GPP product validation, David Turner, William D. Ritts, Warren B. Cohen, Stith T. Gower, Maosheng Zhao, Steven W. Running, Steve Wofsy, S. P. Urbanski, Allison L. Dunn, and J. W. Munger
Submissions from 2002
Global products of vegetation leaf area and fraction absorbed PAR from year one of MODIS data, Ranga B. Myneni, S. Hoffman, Yuri Knyazikhin, J. Privette, Joseph M. Glassy, Yuhong Tian, Y. Wang, X. Song, Y. Zhang, G. R. Smith, A. Lotsch, M. Friedl, J. T. Morisette, Petr Votava, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, and Steven W. Running
Recent trends in hydrologic balance have enhanced the terrestrial carbon sink in the United States, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, Michael White, Peter Edmond Thornton, Kenlo Nishida, Swarna Reddy, Jennifer Jenkins, and Steven W. Running
The Influence of Land-use Change and Landscape Dynamics on the Climate System: Relevance to Climate-change Policy Beyond the Radiative Effect of Greenhouse Gases, Roger A. Pielke, Gregg Marland, Richard A. Betts, Thomas N. Chase, Joseph L. Eastman, John O. Niles, Dev Niyogi, and Steven W. Running
Three-dimensional mapping of geomorphic controls on flood-plain hydrology and connectivity from aerial photos, Geoffrey C. Poole, Jack A. Stanford, C. A. Frissell, and Steven W. Running
MODIS Vegetation Workshop Report, Steven W. Running
New Satellite Technologies Enhance Study of Terrestrial Biosphere, Steven W. Running
Carbon Sequestration Studied in Western U.S. Mountains, David S. Schimel, T. G. F. Kittel, Steven W. Running, Russell Monson, Andrew Turnipseed, and Dean Anderson
Fuzzy Logic Merger of Spectral and Ecological Information for Improved Montane Forest Mapping, Joseph D. White, Steven W. Running, Kevin C. Ryan, and Carl C. Key
Submissions from 2001
FLUXNET: A New Tool to Study the Temporal and Spatial Variability of Ecosystem-Scale Carbon Dioxide, Water Vapor, and Energy Flux Densities, Dennis Baldocchi, Eva Falge, Lianhong Gu, Richard Olson, D. Y. Hollinger, Steven W. Running, Peter Anthoni, Ch. Bernhofer, Kenneth Davis, Robert Evans, Jose Fuentes, Allen Goldstein, Gabriel Katul, Beverly Law, Xuhui Lee, Yadvinder Malhi, Tilden Meyers, William Munger, Walt Oechel, K. T. Paw U, Kim Pilegaard, H. P. Schmid, Riccardo Valentini, Shashi Verma, Timo Vesala, Kell Wilson, and Steve Wofsy
Relative climatic effects of landcover change and elevated carbon dioxide combined with aerosols: A comparison of model results and observations, Thomas N. Chase, Roger A. Pielke, T. G. F. Kittel, M. Zhao, A. Pitman, Steven W. Running, and Ramakrishna R. Nemani
Comparisons of predictions of net primary production and seasonal patterns in water use derived with two forest growth models in Southwestern Oregon, N. C. Coops, R. H. Waring, S. R. Brown, and Steven W. Running
Water in a Changing World, Robert B. Jackson, Stephen R. Carpenter, Clifford N. Dahm, Diane M. McKnight, Robert J. Naiman, Sandra L. Postel, and Steven W. Running
Application of the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) for determining the Daily Frozen and Nonfrozen Landscape of Alaska, John S. Kimball, K. C. McDonald, Alisa Renae Keyser, S. Frolking, and Steven W. Running