by Cheryl Doughty, Qing Ying, and Erin Delaria (University of Maryland/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Ayia Lindquist (SSAI/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Like other early career researchers who collaborate to address Earth’s most pressing issues, we four scientists work together to support NASA’s BlueFlux project, bringing together data that allow us to observe important changes happening on our Earth. We are driven by the question “Will the benefits we get from wetlands be lost with the ever-increasing pressures of human needs and climate change?”
To address these issues, our science takes us from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to the field. We’ll splash into mangrove and freshwater wetlands of the Everglades with Cheryl Doughty of the University of Maryland and GSFC’s Qing Ying; we’ll take off in planes to fly over the South Florida region with Erin Delaria, also from GSFC; and we’ll assimilate into the communities of people whose lives are intertwined with the health of the whole Everglades ecosystem with GSFC’s Ayia Lindquist. Along with the many scientists who helped with the BlueFlux field campaign that began in 2022, our shared research goal is to better understand whether wetlands will remain resilient carbon sinks as they …