Breakthrough in monitoring tropical deforestation announced in Copenhagen
Saturday, December 12, 2009 - 05:28
in Earth & Climate
Tropical forest destruction accounts for some 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. But quantifying these emissions has not been easy, particularly for tropical nations. New technology, developed by a team of scientists at Carnegie's Department of Global Ecology, is revolutionising forest monitoring by marrying free satellite imagery and powerful analytical methods in an easy-to-use, desktop software package called CLASlite. Thus far, 70 government, non-government, and academic organisations in five countries have adopted the technology, with more on the horizon. The team announced its new web site for CLASlite users at the Copenhagen climate meetings today (http://claslite.ciw.edu)...