From Space to Soil: How NASA Sees Forests

Narration: Emme Watkins

Transcript:

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One of the things that I love looking at

is Siberia,

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a place I've never been, this vast, vast

forest covering,

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you know, so much of of that boreal domain

that we have almost no data in

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because it's really difficult

to get there,

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but being able

to see it in high resolution

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and like zoom in and see what's

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going on in those parts of the world

that we could never visit by foot.

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It's it's really it's really cool

and exciting.

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Forests play a crucial role

in balancing Earth's carbon budget,

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absorbing and storing

roughly 30% of atmospheric carbon.

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However, vast regions

like Siberia's boreal forests

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or the Congo Basin's tropical

forests have been a mystery

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because of the obstacles

we face in studying them up close.

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For I mean,

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over 50 years now,

we've been looking at forest from space.

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The longest record is from

the Landsat program,

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where we have, you know, these high

resolution images month after month,

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showing us where there is forest,

where we're losing it.

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But there's something

we still don't fully understand.

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How much biomass we've truly lost.

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Biomass is the total mass

of living things in a given area.

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If you were to cut down a tree and dry it,

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about half of the dry

mass of that tree is pure carbon.

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So where we've seen

historic losses in forest,

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we haven't known how much carbon

was actually lost as part of that.

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But in the forest domain,

there is that hope.

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And and it's actionable.

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Meet GEDI mounted

on the International Space Station.

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It's the first satellite lidar system

specifically

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designed to measure forests in 3D.

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GEDI maps tree canopy height,

forest structure, and surface

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elevation, giving us an unprecedented

and incredibly detailed

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view of Earth's canopy structure.

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This allows us to measure biomass

and the carbon stored within.

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But it has one major limitation.

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It had this huge data gap in the boreal

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because the International Space Station

doesn't go over the poles.

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So essentially

we have amazing data from GEDI

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over the tropics,

over the temperate forests.

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But the vast majority of the boreal

was just this huge data gap.

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That's where ICESat-2 comes in.

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We're so lucky right now, with the forest

lidar community that we have ICESat-2,

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which was not designed

primarily for forests.

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The lasers are different,

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but it's still collecting really useful

3D forest measurements.

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ICESat-2 fills in these spatial data gaps

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by obtaining different measurements

at different rates,

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giving us a more complete picture

of global carbon storage.

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So these

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these two lidar systems

that NASA is currently operating.

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GEDI and ICESat-2

they're really quite complementary.

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They're in different orbits.

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And so their transect across

the ground is a little bit different.

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So it captures different,

parts and different

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densities

as you will of within the mid-latitudes.

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By combining data from GEDI and ICESat-2,

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scientists can create a first of its kind

global biomass map.

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Now we're able to track

where carbon is being lost

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and where it's being regained

as forests recover

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or new trees are introduced.

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So then after we have GEDI

and ICESat-2 on orbit,

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we can assign estimates of how much carbon

is being lost

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or sunk back into those forests

as we see them change over time.

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So we're we're uncovering

all sorts of forest carbon stories

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that we've we've never

had the data to do before.

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What you want to do is say

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like, here's where most of the habitat

is for biodiversity.

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Here's where most of the carbon is.

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These are the most, they're the highest

priority places for for conservation.

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These are the best places

for potential restoration. Right.

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So we can use these satellite products

to help guide decision making.

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But then also provide this,

this check to,

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to give us a sense

of how well we're doing over time.

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Using this knowledge,

NASA provides critical insights

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that help decision makers take action

in protecting and restoring forests,

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strengthening one of Earth's most

biodiverse and carbon rich ecosystems.

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With GEDI and ICESat-2,

we're not just looking at forests.

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We're seeing a global picture

of our planet's carbon cycles.

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Impacts of forest management, changes

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in forest cover, and the future of

our planet's carbon balance.

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We really can make a

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positive impact there and we need these

NASA missions to do that.