From Space to Soil: How NASA Sees Forests

Narration: Emme Watkins

Transcript:

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Narrator

Forests are like giant carbon vaults, stowing away massive amounts of carbon in their trunks, branches, leaves, and roots. NASA's GEDI instrument, mounted on the International Space Station, helps map forests in 3D tracking tree canopy height, forest structure, and surface elevation.

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GEDI measures forest biomass, the total mass of all living trees and plants in the forest,

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and the carbon stored within.

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I,

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However, GEDI needs a little help.

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Because the Space Station doesn't orbit over high latitudes, GEDI can't measure

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boreal forest regions.

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That's where the ICESat-2 satellite steps in. It has a different orbit, so it can make measurements of boreal forests near Earth's polar regions.

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Together, GEDI and ICESat-2 give us the most complete view yet of Earth's forests and how much carbon they contain.

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Now we can track where carbon is being lost or gained as forests change.

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With GEDI and ICESat-2, we can see the future of our planet's carbon balance and how it changes over time.