Full catalog/SoilResp_HeterotrophicResp_1928
SoilResp_HeterotrophicResp_1928·v1·dataset

How much carbon soils breathe out worldwide (1 km)

Global Gridded 1-km Soil and Soil Heterotrophic Respiration Derived from SRDB v5
land NASA ORNL_CLOUD Level 4 COG
In plain English

What it measures. How much carbon dioxide soils release into the air worldwide as microbes and roots break down material (soil respiration), plus the portion from microbes alone, with uncertainty estimates, at 1-km resolution.

How it's made. Estimated with a statistical model that combined thousands of field measurements from a global soil-respiration database with climate, vegetation, and terrain data, rather than from satellites.

How & where you'd use it. Helps scientists understand the carbon cycle and how much carbon soils give off, which matters for climate models and tracking greenhouse gases.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › SOILS › SOIL RESPIRATION › AUTOTROPHIC RESPIRATION (Ra)LAND SURFACE › SOILS › SOIL RESPIRATION › HETEROTROPHIC RESPIRATION (Rh)

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1961-01-01 → 2016-06-01
  • Measured byMODELS (Computer)
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsCOG
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

This dataset provides global gridded estimates of annual soil respiration (Rs) and soil heterotrophic respiration (Rh) and associated uncertainties at 1 km resolution. Mean soil respiration was estimated using a quantile regression forest model utilizing data from the global Soil Respiration Database Version 5 (SRDB-V5) and covariates of mean annual temperature, seasonal precipitation, and vegetative cover. The SRDB holds results of field studies of soil respiration from around the globe. A total of 4,115 records from 1,036 studies were selected from SRDB-V5. SRDB-V5 features more soil respiration data published in Russian and Chinese scientific literature for better global spatio-temporal coverage and improved global climate-space representation. These soil respiration records were combined with global meteorological, land cover, and topographic data and then evaluated with variable selection using random forests. The standard deviation and coefficient of variation of Rs are included and were also derived from the same model. Global heterotrophic respiration was calculated from Rs estimates. The data are produced in part from SRDB-V5 inputs that cover the period 1961-2016.

Get the data

soilresp_heterotrophicresp_1928_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SoilResp_HeterotrophicResp_1928",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ORNL_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.