New remote-sensing technique used to determine carbon losses in Sub-Saharan Africa

Research published yesterday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution finds that pressures from human activities and climate change caused the African continent to lose as much as 2.6 billion metric tons of carbon between 2010 and 2016. The study not only shows that there was an overall net carbon loss across sub-Saharan Africa, but also that substantial losses occurred in drylands — savannahs and woodlands that fall outside of humid zones — which lost approximately 5 percent of their total carbon stocks each year. When most people think of how changes in above-ground biomass affect terrestrial carbon storage, they probably think first of tropical deforestation. But, in addition to ongoing deforestation, Africa is experiencing one of the driest periods recorded in the past few decades. In order to quantify how all of these factors have impacted annual changes in above-ground biomass-carbon in sub-Saharan Africa, an international team of scientists used a new remote sensing technique based on a satellite system that employs low-frequency, passive microwave signals as opposed to the more common high-resolution photography. According to lead author Martin Brandt of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, data from remote sensing techniques using optical imagery or high-frequency microwave signals are restricted to the upper canopy layer, which is especially problematic in areas where vegetation is dense. The new technique Brand and team developed, however, gave them the ability to look deeper into the vegetation canopy layer with less interference from green, non-woody plants. “We find that with the new…

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