Sizing up Biomass from Space
New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Carbon Balance and Management has used Lidar data collected by the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) aboard the Ice Cloud and Elevation Satellite (ICESat) to accurately measure the biomass of California. When the ICESat2 is launched in 2016 this method will be able to monitor biomass and other global data changes.
As part of the global carbon cycle it is thought that global biomass acts as a carbon reservoir and consequently that deforestation and changes of land use contribute to global warming by liberating carbon from this reservoir.
Initiatives such as United Nations Collaborative Programmed on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) are attempting to measure changes in forest carbon storage. But many countries do not have national forest inventories, and for those that do, methods and definitions used to monitor vegetation differ.
Read the rest of the Science Daily article.
