The BIOMASS mission: Mapping global forest biomass to better understand the terrestrial carbon cycle

Abstract

In response to the urgent need for improved mapping of global biomass and the lack of any 30 current space systems capable of addressing this need, the BIOMASS mission was proposed to the European Space Agency for the third cycle of Earth Explorer Core illustrates the ability of such a sensor to provide the required measurements.At present, the BIOMASS P-band radar appears to be the only sensor capable of providing the necessary global knowledge about the world's forest biomass and its changes. Inaddition, this first chance to explore the Earth's environment with a long 60 wavelength satellite SAR is expected to make yield new information in a range of geoscience areas, including subsurface structure in arid lands and polar ice, and forest inundation dynamics.

Mortality as a key driver of the spatial distribution of aboveground biomass in Amazonian forest: results from a dynamic vegetation model

“…7b and d). It is expected that biomass increments estimated by satellites such as the proposed BIOMASS mission (Le Toan et al, 2010) at several year interval could be used to infer NPP AGW for regenerating forests. Our results suggest that remote sensing biomass maps would allow rescaling of NPP AGW and mortality simulated by a DVM for forests for which there is no visible biomass increment, i.e.…”

“…Recently, advances combining field data, remote sensing techniques and innovative statistical methods have provided new insights on the distribution of Above Ground Woody Biomass (AGWB) in Amazonia (Malhi et al, 2006;Saatchi et al, 2007). In the future, dedicated remote sensing mission such as the BIOMASS mission (ESA, 2008;Le Toan et al, 2010) will provide consistent, global, and gridded AGWB dataset at spatial resolution of 100 m, and will allow monitoring forest biomass lost due to disturbances and ensuing biomass increment. Consistency among recent maps suggests that the important regional variation in AGWB across Amazonia is not an artefact of measurement methods.…”

Estimación de la Biomasa y Carbono almacenado en la cobertura arbórea de la región del Carare - Opón (Santander)

“…Se ha demostrado que el uso de los desperdicios forestales (ramas, copas de árboles, tocones) y agrícolas para la generación de energía proporciona menores cantidades de emisión que el uso de combustibles fósiles [18], [41]- [43] con una disminución de entre el 11% y el 15% [44].…”

“…Entre sus fines está estimar las reservas de carbono almacenadas en los bosques [15] [16] [17], pues existen incertidumbres en cuanto a la disposición de las reservas de carbono debido a los cambios en el uso del suelo y la falta de conocimiento de los rebrotes [18]the BIOMASS mission was proposed to the European Space Agency for the third cycle of Earth Explorer Core missions and was selected for Feasibility Study (Phase A; por ejemplo, alrededor del 80% del carbono almacenado en la superficie de la tierra se encuentra en los bosques tropicales [19].…”

The BIOMASS mission — An ESA Earth Explorer candidate to measure the BIOMASS of the earth's forests

“…The BIOMASS mission is a response to the urgent need for greatly improved mapping of global biomass and the lack of any current space systems capable of addressing this need. The objective of BIOMASS is to map the full range of the world's above-ground biomass with accuracy and spatial resolution compatible with the needs of national scale inventory and carbon flux calculations, and shall map changes in forest biomass [1]. The mission was proposed to the European Space Agency for the third cycle of Earth Explorer Core missions.…”