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Science Deforestation to be Monitored from Space
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - October 21, 2009 10:35 AM
Print 15 comment(s) - last by spepper.. on Oct 24 at 10:47 AM
NASA, ESA, and more space agencies working with Google on the program

Many ecological groups and government agencies around the world blame part of global warming on deforestation occurring in heavily forested tropical regions of the planet. NASA and several other international space agencies are working with search giant Google to develop a plan to monitor deforestation and compare the amount of forests in parts of the world to past data.

Google already collects satellite images for use in its Google Earth application. Among the space agencies working on the program are NASA -- who was recently ordered to monitor more asteroids by Congress without any additional funds -- The ESA, and the national space agencies of Japan, Germany, Italy, India, and Brazil. Together the agencies will take part in forest mapping that is most efficiently done from space using satellite images.

Reuters reports that seven countries would act as pilot programs including Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Guyana, Indonesia, Mexico, and Tanzania. All of these locations have had satellite images taken in the last few months. The U.S. has satellite images from Landsat going all the way back to 1972 to use for comparisons. A base year will be chosen for comparisons, and that year is likely to be 1990.

That date is in line with the date chosen for the U.S. Kyoto Protocol for reducing industrial emissions. The project will be carried out in phases with the first phase showing how much of a country was forested. A later second phase would be to work out how much carbon is locked up inside each type of forest. The countries could be issued credits to pay for them to leave the forests intact.

According to Stephen Briggs, head of the ESA Earth Observation Science, Applications, and Future Technologies unit the amount of carbon above a forest can be measured by radar images.

"We need some form of validated, assured mechanism," he said. "Assessments of carbon stocks from space need to be calibrated against measurements taken on the ground."

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Deforestation / Reforestation
By Paperdoc on 10/21/2009 10:51:46 AM , Rating: 2
To monitor the impact of forest changes on carbon and CO2 balances and global weather, they need to be quantifying both DEforestation and REforestation. Deforestation by harvesting is easy to monitor - it happens over a very short time period and the change is easy to spot. Reforestation takes from 10 to 60 years, depending on species, land and weather, so measuring the magnitude and then quantifying this in terms of CO2 sequestration is much harder.

We impose a human-centered view of time on plant growth. We have absolutely no problem with planting a grain crop in spring, watching it grow and convert CO2 to cellulose biomass and starchy grain storage, then completely harvesting all of that field in the fall to use the grain kernels and maybe some of the plant stems. Repeat every year. But do this for a tree-type plant with a life cycle of 60 years, rather than less than one, and too many of us freak out! Sixty years is damn near a whole lifetime - for a person, not a world.




RE: Deforestation / Reforestation
By Bateluer on 10/21/2009 10:59:03 AM , Rating: 3
Agreed, humans think in much shorter time frames. Geologic time spans much greater figures. Hard for many people get a grip on.

If you compress the entire history of Earth into a 24 hour period, humans have only been around for something like the last 2 seconds, and only a fraction of that have we had more than stone tools and animal hide clothing.


RE: Deforestation / Reforestation
By 2uantuM on 10/21/2009 11:30:25 AM , Rating: 2
WRONG. THE EARTH IS ONLY 6000 YEARS OLD.

/S


RE: Deforestation / Reforestation
By acase on 10/21/2009 12:45:23 PM , Rating: 2
I guess you actually need to write out Sarcasm...


RE: Deforestation / Reforestation
By jimbojimbo on 10/21/2009 1:13:31 PM , Rating: 2
I've always heard it's only a fraction of a second.


RE: Deforestation / Reforestation
By Iaiken on 10/21/2009 1:57:23 PM , Rating: 3
It depends on how you define modern man.

Homosapiens Sapiens has been around for about 195,000 years.
Earth: 4.5 billion years.

That would equate to 3.75 seconds.

However, if you define modern man as post-scientific method (1000 years) then it works out to 0.0195 seconds (or thereabouts).


RE: Deforestation / Reforestation
By pirspilane on 10/21/2009 11:58:41 AM , Rating: 3
They are measuring forestation at a specific point in time and comparing it to an earlier point in time. So both reforestation and deforestation are captured.

The problem is, deforestation is occuring at a much higher rate than reforestation.


RE: Deforestation / Reforestation
By acase on 10/21/2009 12:49:08 PM , Rating: 2
Rate, yes, like a previous post said you can cut them down in seconds but they may take 60 years to grow back. However, what really matters is whether or not the same amount of trees are being planted as are being cut down, which I believe over time is pretty equal. This will not easily be seen in these satellite images though for a number of years though, so of course the results will be skewed.


RE: Deforestation / Reforestation
By JediJeb on 10/21/2009 2:09:30 PM , Rating: 2
Another factor to consider is that a young tree will be growing at a different rate than a mature tree. Once a tree becomes mature it usually slows down on its growth rate.

Also does the decaying undergrowth of a mature forest produce more or less CO2 than the realtively bare ground of a newly planted forest? Many many variables to consider if they are to get this right.


RE: Deforestation / Reforestation
By Screwballl on 10/22/2009 4:58:33 PM , Rating: 2
Try actually reading something other than Liberal MMGW Daily. There is a balance that the earth handles. For every acre of trees that may be cut down in Brazil, it fuels the increased grother of new trees, expands and increases the tree coverage area into spots with less trees to counter balance it.
If there is more CO2 to grab from the air, the faster the trees will grow to counter balance it... so in reality, unless we cut down more than 10% in less than a few weeks, then there is nothing to worry about.


RE: Deforestation / Reforestation
By carniver on 10/21/2009 12:26:59 PM , Rating: 2
> The countries could be issued credits to pay for them to leave the forests intact.

Good idea but I wonder who'll pay out those credits and in what form


RE: Deforestation / Reforestation
By JediJeb on 10/21/2009 2:13:50 PM , Rating: 2
Also what will replace the wood that is used and how will that effect the environment?

Cut less trees but use plastic to take the place of the end product and you could be creating more problems than you solve. Same if using metal, you need a lot more power to refine the metals than to process the trees. The equation must balance out, just where the balance point ends up makes a lot of difference in the final outcome.


RE: Deforestation / Reforestation
By 440sixpack on 10/21/2009 12:44:02 PM , Rating: 2
That reminds me of a comedian (George Carlin?) who was making a joke about all the doomsaying that we're destroying the world - this was back a few years so I think the issue then might have been the ozone layer hole. Anyway the joke was that everyone is crying that "the world is ending, we're destroying the world" and the response was "the earth is fine, earth isn't going anywhere - it's people that are going away."

Not exactly how it went but the gist is there.


deforestation
By FPP on 10/23/2009 4:59:02 PM , Rating: 2
I'm glad this is brought up. This is the 900 lb Canary in the room i.e. the C02 freaks rarely bring this up and it's also the number one cause of extinction in the world. Having said that, we realyy don't need more monitoring, we need to QUIT DOING IT!




here we go again
By spepper on 10/24/2009 10:47:18 AM , Rating: 2
this is a classic example of "pointing the camera the other way" in order for it to show only PART of the truth, which in turn tells a LIE-- hey NASA, how about pointing that thing to areas that are showing REFORESTATION? The little secret about trees is that we can grow more of them-- imagine that--




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