This year's Biomass mission is designed to reveal new insights into that, how forests change, and their key role in regulating the Earth's carbon cycle. To this end, the European Space Agency (ЕКА), Brazilian National Space Research Institute (COMMIT) and the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) recently joined forces in Belen (Brazil), to evaluate, how to best use data from this satellite.
ESA is working on that, to bridge the gap between available satellite data and its practical application in Brazil's national monitoring efforts, including reporting to international climate frameworks. Close collaboration with Brazilian partners is essential to ensure full integration of biomass data and other satellite data into data processing systems, which will contribute to the creation of local, national and regional data processing products.
Biomass is the first space mission of the Earth Explorer Biomass radar with a synthesized P-band aperture. Expected, that its data will provide an unprecedented understanding of forest structure. Preparing the Brazilian forestry community to use all biomass data products is fundamental not only to ensure early data use, but also to facilitate independent validation, which fully corresponds to the mission strategy, oriented towards open science.
Due to the long wavelength of the P-band, radar signal, emitted by the Biomass satellite, depending on the polarization, penetrates through the entire forest layer, and the signal is backscattered by individual elements of the forest canopy. So, the measured signal carries information about the structure of the forest and can be used to determine such parameters, such as forest biomass and tree height.
The Biomass satellite is equipped with two synthetic aperture polarimetric radars, which means, that it can transmit and receive signals in orthogonal linear polarizations - horizontal and vertical. Each polarization channel provides different types of information about the forest. But to record such details, such as forest height and canopy structure, the satellite must pass over the same area several times - method, known as synthesized aperture radar interferometry.
Biomass is also the first radar mission in space, which includes a special tomographic phase, allowing researchers to construct vertical cross-sections of forested regions. Interpretation and application of the final data - Biomass is still in the commissioning phase - a complex process, but ESA helps users make full use of this information for environmental science and management.
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/Biomass/ Brazil_gears_up_to_harness_ESA_s_Biomass_data
Source: https://www.esa.int