About Us

NASA’s mission is to provide the observations and foundational science that underpins our understanding of Earth as a system. This is essential in the context of greenhouse gasses and climate change because the processes that drive climate change depend not only on human influences such as greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions, but also how the land biosphere and ocean respond to and absorb these emissions.

Through its Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), NASA supports prototyping of new data capabilities and product-oriented overlays to our existing programs that aid in the monitoring, reporting, and verification of carbon stocks and fluxes. CMS is an Earth system science approach that combines observations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere with measurements of the biological processes responsible for surface emission and uptake, or absorption, of carbon dioxide. CMS looks at land and water along with critical markers of the transformation of vegetation like evapotranspiration and solar-induced fluorescence. By producing top-down and bottom-up greenhouse gas emissions estimates and comparing them, CMS can point towards what we are missing.

The CMS Leadership Team

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George Hurtt

Science Team Lead

George is a Professor at the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park.

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Peter Griffith

CMS Project Scientist

Peter is the chief scientist at the Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems (CCE) office at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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Ben Poulter

Lead Applications Team

Ben works is a Research Scientist in the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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Molly Brown

Molly Brown, Applications Science Lead

Molly is a Research Scientist at the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park.

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Edil Sepúlveda

Applications Coordinator

Edil works for Science Systems and Applications as the CMS Applications Coordinator at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

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Ken Jucks

Program Manager

Ken works for the Upper Atmosphere Research Program (UARP) in the Earth Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

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Hank Margolis

Program Manager

Hank leads the Terrestrial Ecology (TE) Program in the Earth Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

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Michael Falkowski

Program Scientist

Michael works in the Terrestrial Ecology Program in the NASA Earth Science Division, NASA Headquarters.

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Laura Lorenzoni

Program Manager

Laura is the Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program (OBB) Lead at the NASA Headquarters Science Mission Directorate.