THE GLOBAL BIOSPHERE EMISSIONS AND INTERACTIONS SYSTEM (GLOBEIS)

 

About GLOBEIS

The BEIS series of models are the product of collaboration between researchers at the EPA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The Global Biosphere emissions and Interactions System (GLOBEIS) was developed at NCAR to allow users to estimate biogenic emissions of volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, and soil NO_x for any scale and domain. GLOBEIS runs in Microsoft ACCESS on Windows-based personal computers. Emission rates are a function of landcover and environmental conditions, which are characterized from user-supplied data using the most updated emissions algorithms (Guenther et al., 1999a and 1999b).

GLOBEIS was developed by NCAR and ENVIRON International Corporation under funding from the Texas Comission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).

Advantages of GLOBEIS

GLOBEIS3 offers several advantages including:

	Ability to use high resolution landuse data such as GIS data or the BELD 3 database.
	Updated emission factor algorithms. The GLOBEIS3 algorithms reflect the latest science compared to the BEIS2 algorithms from the early 1990s.
	Ability to compare different emission factor algorithms (BEIS2, GLOBEIS3) in the same model.
	VOC speciation for the CB05, CB4 and SAPRC99 chemical mechanisms.
	Ability to base isoprene emissions on solar radiation data supplied from GOES satellite images. This accurately represents the impacts of clouds on biogenic emission inventories with hourly temporal resolution.
	Ability to model effects of drought and prolonged periods of high temperature.
	Ability to use satellite-based leaf area index (LAI) data to determine the spatial distribution of emissions and/or leaf age.
	Leaf temperature model.
	Ease of use. GLOBEIS is user-friendly with built in quality assurance and reporting functions.

Example Applications

1. An example of the difference in spatial resolution of GLOBEIS and BEIS2 isoprene emissions is shown for the Houston, Texas area in Figure 1 .