#global ecosystem

NASA Releases Breakthrough Forest Biomass-Carbon Product

NASA’s GEDI mission has reached a major milestone with the release of its newest data product, which provides the first near-global estimate of aboveground forest biomass and the carbon it stores – filling a key gap in climate research.

The data enables research into how Earth’s forests are changing, what role they play in mitigating climate change, and the regional and global impacts of planting and cutting down trees.

With the new data product from GEDI, the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation, ecosystem and climate researchers can quickly locate their regions of interest and study forest structure and carbon content with greater precision than in the past.

𝙷𝙾𝚆 𝙱𝙰𝙳 𝙸𝚂 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙲𝙻𝙸𝙼𝙰𝚃𝙴 𝙵𝙴𝙴𝙳𝙱𝙰𝙲𝙺 𝙵𝚁𝙾𝙼 𝚆𝙸𝙻𝙳𝙵𝙸𝚁𝙴𝚂?

"If we start to see a higher level of fire activity than in the past because of global warming, they become part of a climate feedback loop" Van Der Werf said.

The total devastation from recent wildfires in California and Australia have brought much attention to a severe problem. Did you know that humans start 𝟏.𝟑 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬 , and the biggest culprit is trash burning? While meteorologists can forecast the conditions favorable to sparking wildfires, such as dry and windy conditions, there are still steps to take to prevent future wildfires…

During the first seven months of 2010, there were around 𝟏,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 in which some 𝟐𝟐,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐝𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐬 (𝟓,𝟓𝟎𝟎 𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐬) of natural and planted woodland, containing 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝟖𝟎𝟎,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐬, went up in flames. This is in comparison to 2008 and 2009, in which years there was an average of 𝟗𝟎𝟎 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝟏,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬 that were burned.

The extreme wildfires are not only wreaking local damage and sending choking smoke downwind. They are also affecting the climate itself in important ways that will long outlast their flames.Wildfires emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that will continue to warm the planet well into the future. They damage forests that would otherwise remove CO2 from the air. And they inject soot and other aerosols into the atmosphere, with complex effects on warming and cooling.

Although the exact quantities are difficult to calculate, scientists estimate that wildfires emitted about 𝟖 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐎𝟐 per year for the past 20 years. In 2017, total global CO2 emissions reached 𝟑𝟐.𝟓 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐬, according to the International Energy Agency.

Once the spark is lit, humans can't do much to change wildfires' greenhouse gas emissions. But it's still important to include them in the calculations for reaching the greenhouse gas reduction targets in the Paris climate agreement. With time running out to try and cap global warming at well-below 1.5 degrees Celsius, every ton of CO2 counts, and knowing how extreme wildfire seasons affect greenhouse gas emissions lets the world know how much it will have to cut emissions elsewhere.

Understanding how emissions form during wildfires could also help in the design of mitigation strategies to reduce their impact. For example, a recent CIRES - Cooperative Institute for Research In Environmental Sciences research project suggests that hotter, uncontrolled fires produce more harmful substances. Introducing controlled fires that generally are not as hot could help reduce emissions.

The current increase in extreme fires in some regions is part of a global ecosystem shift driven by human-caused global warming. Societies need to adopt strong policies to prevent huge regions of carbon-storing forests from being replaced by lower-carbon grasslands and shrubs.

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The Global Ecosystem is Rapidly Collapsing… Insect Biomass Plummets 75% in One Generation… Scientists Warn of “Decimation”… humanity may not survive much longer

By Mike Adams – Natural News

(Natural News) For years, I’ve warned that humanity is a suicide cult which has engineered its own destruction by relentlessly poisoning the natural world with chemical pesticides, heavy metals and GMOs. Now, the collapse of living systems across the planet is accelerating like never before, with ocean fisheries collapsing by the day, topsoil vanishing by the inch,…