GLOBAL News - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Read Blog “Before, During, and After the NASA GLOBE Trees Challenge 2022: A Revisit with the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership”
Did you participate in the NASA GLOBE Trees Challenge 2022: Trees in a Changing Climate? Read the most recent blog, written by Brian Campbell (a NASA Senior Earth Science Outreach Specialist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Virginia, USA), ”Before, During, and After the NASA GLOBE Trees Challenge 2022: A Revisit with the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership.”
“From 11 October to 11 November, 2022, volunteers around the world took part in the NASA GLOBE Trees Challenge 2022: Trees in a Changing Climate. The challenge resulted in 4,700+ tree height observations from 1,500+ locations in 50 GLOBE countries!”
“With 3.03 trillion trees and 78,000 tree species on Earth, we strive to build and update the global inventory of tree height observations and collect as many tree circumference measurements as possible. Tracking how trees change over time, both in height and in the number of trees that make up an area, is a good indicator of an ecosystem’s health in an evolving climate. Additionally, both tree height and trunk circumference can help to measure biomass, which is the total mass of living material above ground in a particular area. Biomass is often measured to assess the health of an ecosystem. Trees and vegetation that make up the majority of the biomass in an environment are those that are controlling the water, nutrients, and solar resources in that environment."
“The data collected by volunteer scientists during the challenge, provide a ground-based point of view, that can be compared to the space-based tree height data from missions such as the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) and the Global Ecosystems Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) instrument on the International Space Station. All of the observations from various sources allow scientists to create global maps of land cover and forests and can help us understand how our planet is responding to a changing climate. Combining the ground-based tree height observations from GLOBE and the space-based tree height observations from ICESat-2 and GEDI, student and professional researchers can access a large amount of data from locations across the globe.”
The blog also highlights the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership, a group that has been active with the GLOBE Trees community. “The Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership (K10) has been working with key stakeholders, conservation groups, technical assistance providers, growers, volunteers and many others to plant ten million trees across Pennsylvania, USA, by 2025, and they are halfway to their goal!”
To learn more about the Trees Challenge, click here.
To read the entire update, and learn more about the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership, click here.
News origin: GLOBE Implementation Office