Methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) are the two dominant anthropogenic (human-generated) climate-forcing agents. Additionally, CH4 is relevant to air-quality science and applications: CH4 is a precursor for tropospheric ozone and is strongly linked with co-emitted reactive trace gases that can impact human health. Carbon Mapper is designed to detect at least 80% of high emission CH4 and CO2 point sources […]
Tech: Earth observation
Allen Coral Atlas
The Allen Coral Atlas is led by Asner Lab to map and monitor the world’s coral reefs using satellites and field programs. Coral reefs are among the most important ecosystems on our planet. A few facts: at least 25% of marine species depend on coral reefs at some point in their life cycle. More than […]
Caribbean Reef Conservation
Asner Lab maps numerous countries in the Caribbean for conservation planning and management in partnership with The Nature Conservancy in the Caribbean, Planet, and Vulcan Inc. Our lab has produced high-resolution maps of important shallow underwater habitats throughout the entire Caribbean—including all shallow-water coral reefs. For the first time ever, countries and territories now have […]
Global Forest Carbon Monitoring
Forests are the lungs of the Earth: they take in and store carbon dioxide and release the oxygen we breathe. This is something we intuitively understand, but we have not yet developed practical and cost-effective ways of accounting for this value in our economic decisions and transactions. The result is that tropical countries are incentivized […]
Biodiversity and Carbon Storage in California
California is both a global biodiversity hotspot and home to forest ecosystems with the highest aboveground carbon storage per unit of land area on earth. Warming temperatures and changing precipitation patterns threaten California’s forests and their ecosystem services. Asner Lab is working to map patterns of forest species composition, forest functional diversity, and carbon stocks […]
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Global Airborne Observatory
The Global Airborne Observatory (GAO), formerly the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO), is an airborne laboratory developed by Dr. Greg Asner and his team that houses advanced Earth mapping technology. The GAO’s mission is to make scientific discoveries, support conservation, and galvanize action to protect the environment at large geographic scales. Now in its third generation, […]