From Space to Soil: How NASA Sees Forests

From Space to Soil: How NASA Sees Forests

Narration: Emme Watkins

Transcript:

00;00;02;18 - 00;00;17;00

Laura Duncanson

One of the things that I love looking at is Siberia, a place I've never been, this vast, vast forest covering, you know, so much of of that boreal domain that we have almost no data in because it's really difficult to get there,

00;00;17;00 - 00;00;27;13

Laura Duncanson

but being able to see it in high resolution and like zoom in and see what's going on in those parts of the world that we could never visit by foot. It's it's really it's really cool and exciting.

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Narrator

Forests play a crucial role in balancing Earth's carbon budget, absorbing and storing roughly 30% of atmospheric carbon. However, vast regions like Siberia's boreal forests or the Congo Basin's tropical forests

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Narrator

have been a mystery

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Narrator

because of the obstacles we face in studying them up close.

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Laura Duncanson

For I mean, over 50 years now, we've been looking at forest from space. The longest record is from the

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Laura Duncanson

Landsat program, where we have, you know, these high resolution images month after month, showing us where there is forest, where we're losing it.

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Narrator

But there's something we still don't fully understand.

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Narrator

How much biomass we've truly lost.

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Narrator

Biomass is the total mass of living things in a given area.

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Laura Duncanson

If you were to cut down a tree and dry it, about half of the dry mass of that tree is pure carbon.

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Laura Duncanson

So where we've seen historic losses in forest, we haven't known how much carbon was actually lost as part of that.

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Laura Duncanson

But in the forest domain, there is that hope. And and it's actionable.

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Narrator

Meet GEDI mounted on the International Space Station. It's the first satellite lidar system specifically designed to measure forests in 3D.

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Narrator

GEDI maps tree canopy height,

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Narrator

forest structure,

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Narrator

and surface elevation, giving us an unprecedented and incredibly detailed view of Earth's canopy structure.

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Narrator

This allows us to measure biomass and the carbon stored within.

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Narrator

But it has one major limitation.

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Laura Duncanson

It had this huge data gap in the boreal because the International Space Station doesn't go over the poles. So essentially we have amazing data from GEDI over the tropics, over the temperate

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Laura Duncanson

forests.

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Laura Duncanson

But the vast majority of the boreal was just this huge data gap.

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Narrator

That's where ICESat-2 comes in.

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Laura Duncanson

We're so lucky right now,

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Laura Duncanson

with the forest lidar community that we have ICESat-2, which was not designed primarily for forests.

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Laura Duncanson

The lasers are different, but it's still collecting really useful 3D forest measurements.

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Narrator

ICESat-2 fills in these spatial data gaps by obtaining different measurements at different rates, giving us a more complete picture of global carbon storage.

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Amy Neuenschwander

So these these two lidar systems that NASA is currently operating. GEDI and ICESat-2 they're really quite complementary. They're in different orbits. And so

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Amy Neuenschwander

their transect across the ground is a little bit different. So it captures different, parts and different densities as you will of within the mid-latitudes.

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Narrator

By combining data from GEDI and ICESat-2, scientists can create a first of its kind global biomass map.

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Narrator

Now we're able to track where carbon is being lost and where it's being regained as forests recover or new trees are introduced.

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Laura Duncanson

So then after we have GEDI and ICESat-2 on orbit,

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Laura Duncanson

we can assign estimates of how much carbon is being lost or sunk back into those forests as we see them change over time.

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Laura Duncanson

So we're we're uncovering all sorts of forest carbon stories that we've we've never had the data to do before.

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Laura Duncanson

What you want to do is say like, here's where most of the habitat is for biodiversity. Here's where most of the carbon is. These are the most, they're the highest priority places for for conservation.

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Laura Duncanson

These are the best places for potential restoration. Right. So we can use these satellite products to help guide decision making. But then also provide this, this check to, to give us a sense of how well we're doing over time.

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Narrator

Using this knowledge, NASA provides critical insights that help decision makers take action in protecting and restoring forests,

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Narrator

strengthening one of Earth's most biodiverse and carbon rich ecosystems.

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Narrator

With GEDI and ICESat-2, we're not just looking at forests. We're seeing a global picture of our planet's carbon cycles. Impacts of forest management, changes in forest cover, and the future of our planet's carbon balance.

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Laura Duncanson

We really can make a positive impact there and we need these NASA missions to do that.