| | |
Summary: The Earth as an extrasolar planet: the
vegetation spectral signature today
and during the last Quaternary
climatic extrema
Luc Arnold1
, Francžois-Marie BreŽon2
and Simon Brewer3
1
Observatoire de Haute Provence CNRS INSU, 04870 Saint-Michel-l'Observatoire, France
e-mail: Luc.Arnold@oamp.fr
2
CEA-DSM-LSCE, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
3
CEREGE, BP 80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 04, France
Abstract: The so-called vegetation red-edge (VRE), a sharp increase in the reflectance around 700 nm, is
a characteristic of vegetation spectra, and can therefore be used as a biomarker if it can be detected in an
unresolved extrasolar Earth-like planet integrated reflectance spectrum. Here, we investigate the potential
for the detection of vegetation spectra during the last Quaternary climatic extrema, the Last Glacial
Maximum (LGM) and the Holocene optimum, for which past climatic simulations have been made.
By testing the VRE detectability during these extrema, when Earth's climate and biomes maps were
|
