Satellite data reveal tropical forests respond differently to climate across continents

Satellite images can be used to estimate how much carbon forests store as aboveground biomass (AGB) and how biomass varies in different forests. In a study published in the journal Nature, a team of researchers affiliated with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), the University of Maryland, NASA and the Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, Brazil, analyzed 16 million 2020 NASA-GEDI satellite estimates of biomass from forests in the Amazon, the Congo Basin and Southeast Asia.