Monitoring the lungs of the world from space
Monitoring the Lungs of the World from Space was presented at COP26 on 6 November 2021.
The role of forests and trees is vital because of their moderating influence globally on carbon, their impact nationally for carbon accounting and locally for people’s livelihoods. This event showcased examples of greenhouse gas removal through forests/trees, to achieve consensus on progress and to share commitments on urgent action, including observations of forest/tree change. Bringing together national delegations, international entities, space agencies and scientific experts.
What was NCEO's contribution?
NCEO Scientists spoke at the event, sharing their expert knowledge on global and national forest carbon inventories, Earth observations from space and value for net zero.
The event started with an introduction by Professor John Remedios, Director of NCEO and Frank Martin Seifert, Director of Earth Observation, ESA. Professor Remedios highlights how important forests are for carbon dioxide and their vastness.
You can watch the video of the full event Monitoring the Lungs of the World from Space on YouTube or watch the individual NCEO presentations in the embedded videos below.
Did you know?
Trees and carbon
Professor Mat Disney opens his presentation showing a video of his conversation with Dame Judi Dench about her Oak tree. They discuss how the size, shape and mass of her tree can be measured to show how much carbon is stored. Mat demonstrates how lasers are used to map tree size and shape, very accurately, and then ‘weigh’ the tree without harvesting.
How do we ‘weigh’ a tree, let alone a forest?
To weigh a tree, you have to have to cut it down, dry it and weigh it – but this is difficult and we don’t really want to do that unless we have to. Current estimates of forest carbon come from generalising a very small number of trees harvested, and then using simple relationships between tree size (diameter, height) and mass.
"We can use satellites, aircraft, drones and field measurements of height and diameter to estimate carbon across regions. For example, tropical forest carbon (3 trillion trees) is estimated using models based on a few thousand weighed trees,. We have found that the larger trees in a plot in Malaysia can weigh much more than is predicted by the simple models. This means we may be underestimating forest carbon significantly (good: there's more carbon stored in trees; bad: if we cut them down we lose more than we thought)"
Prof Disney is working with forestry scientists, ecologists and space agencies to help build better, more representative models to improve carbon estimates from ground, air and space.
His work highlights the need for more investment in ground-based reference sites – places where we know the biomass very accurately, so that more accurate estimates of forest carbon at all scales can be developed.
Prof. Mat Disney, NCEO, University College London
How do forests influence atmospheric CO2?
Professor Paul Palmer begins his presentation giving an overview of the carbon cycle and its various components, like fossil fuels, which emit billions of tonnes of C02 each year. Just over half of this remains in the atmosphere. The land, forests and vegetation take up 60% and oceans take up 40%. Deforestation also has a part to play because when you cut down a tree, it can’t take up carbon dioxide anymore. Paul continues to talk about C02 and how it relates to other components and touches on how satellites measure C02.
Did you know?
You can view the presentation below:
Prof. Paul Palmer, NCEO, University of Edinburgh
Measuring biomass from ground and space
Next to present was Professor Shaun Quegan, NCEO lead scientist on the ESA (European Space Agency) Biomass Mission, which is due to launch in 2023! Shaun highlights the importance of forest biomass in helping to solve the climate problem. Forest biomass stores carbon while a forest grows and loses carbon when a forest is destroyed.
Currently we do not know enough about biomass as forest are huge and difficult to access, presenting a challenge for scientists. Taking ground measurements is hard and time consuming, consequently detailed map coverage is often poor.
Over the last 20 years a major goal of the scientific space community was to find ways of measuring or weighing forests from space. This has mainly been done using two technologies, radar and lidar, which were not originally designed to measure biomass. To make measurements more accurate, three space missions (GEDI; Biomass Mission; NISAR) have been specifically designed to measure biomass from space. To find out more about these missions watch the video below.