Revolutionary Satellite That Will Weigh The Earth’s Forests From Space In 2021

Prominent earth scientists are currently working on a cutting-edge radar system that will be able to weigh the earth's forests. They hope to launch this radar system in 2021 or earlier.

The mission is called BIOMASS. University of Sheffield's Shaun Quegan leads the BIOMASS mission. According to a news article on Techradar, BIOMASS will see the radar installed on a satellite and blasted into orbit. Once there, the radar will start to gather the data to produce a 3D map of the Earth's forests. "The study will essentially weigh forests - it will tell us their weight and height, and we will be able to see how they are changing over time," Quegan explained.

However, since those measurements are currently done from the ground, it is somehow tricky to perform especially in remote regions, thus suffering from scarcity of data. Operating at a wavelength of 70 centimeters, the radar will be able to vastly collect more data while it circles earth; and at the same time, the results will be checked and confirmed by ground data.

"It will give us unprecedented insight into the structure of forests across the world and how changes in forests, both losses from deforestation and gains due to regrowth and reforestation, are affecting the amount of carbon dioxide going into our atmosphere," Quegan further added.

The satellite, together with its primary mission, will likewise provide information on the dynamics of the Earth's upper atmosphere and the motion of ice sheets as well as what lies beneath the surface in arid regions as cited on Phys Org. The satellite will be built by Airbus UK.

The resulting information, moreover, will bring us into a newer light of how carbon cycles through the Earth's natural systems, as part of the endeavor against climate change.

From the original launch date of 2019, the BIOMASS mission has already been delayed. Nevertheless, the satellite should launch in 2021 if all goes well. This will be the 7th mission in the European Space Agency's 'Earth Explorer' program.

"Understanding how the amount of living material - biomass - in our global forests changes over time is necessary for improving present and future assessments of the global carbon cycle, and therefore our climate," Quegan concluded.