Markets Technology

NASA Uses Satellite LiDAR to Create Forest Height Map

NASA

The height of the earth’s forests is important to climate change monitoring and global efforts to monitor carbon stocks. NASA in conjunction with the University of Maryland have developed a geodatabase of the world’s forests.

The data was collected from the Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) instrument, in 2005, using the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System on NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (Icesat). In addition, the researchers also relied on information from NASA’s Terra satellite, NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission and the WorldClim database.

It’s amazing to me that a LiDAR sensor can be operated from space.

2 Comments

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.