{"id":35154,"date":"2025-05-01T05:55:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T03:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/?p=35154"},"modified":"2025-05-01T05:56:52","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T03:56:52","slug":"second-ace-biomass-started-to-help-understand-the-earths-carbon-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/2025\/05\/01\/second-ace-biomass-started-to-help-understand-the-earths-carbon-cycle\/","title":{"rendered":"ESA Biomass satellite launched, will help understand Earth's carbon cycle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\ud83c\udf33 <\/span>The European Space Agency (ESA) has successfully launched its groundbreaking Biomass satellite<\/strong>, which is designed to provide an unprecedented view of the world's forests and their key role in the Earth's carbon cycle. The satellite launched aboard a Vega-C rocket from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on April 29, 2025.<\/p>\n

Biomass separated from the upper part of the rocket less than an hour after liftoff, and ESA's control center in Germany received the first signal confirming its functionality in orbit. The launch and initial orbit phase will take place in the coming days, during which all systems will be carefully checked and complex maneuvers will be performed on the deployment of a 12-meter network reflector<\/strong> supported by a 7.5-meter boom.<\/p>\n

The Biomass mission is designed to provide essential information about the state of our forests<\/strong> and how they are changing, and to deepen our understanding of the role of forests in the carbon cycle. Forests are crucial to the Earth's carbon cycle because they absorb and store large amounts of carbon dioxide, helping to regulate the planet's temperature. They are estimated to absorb around 8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. However, deforestation and degradation, particularly in tropical regions, are releasing stored carbon back into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change.<\/p>\n

The main problem for scientists and politicians is lack of accurate data on how much carbon forests store<\/strong> and how these stocks are changing due to factors such as rising temperatures, increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, and human-induced land use changes.<\/p>\n

Biomass is the first satellite equipped P-band synthetic aperture radar<\/strong>, which is able to penetrate tree crowns and measure woody biomass \u2013 trunks, branches and stems \u2013 where most of the forest\u2019s carbon is stored. These measurements serve as surrogate indicators for carbon storage, which is the mission\u2019s primary goal.<\/p>\n

Biomass satellite data significantly reduce uncertainties in estimates of carbon stocks and flows<\/strong>, including those related to land use change, forest loss and regrowth. The mission was developed by more than 50 companies, led by Airbus UK. The Biomass satellite joins the prestigious family of ESA Earth Explorers missions, which continue to deliver groundbreaking discoveries and advance scientific knowledge about our planet. In addition to measuring biomass, the data will contribute to a better understanding of habitat loss and its impact on biodiversity, mapping subsurface geology in deserts, ice sheet structures and forest floor topography.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the Biomass satellite, ESA is poised to gain Key new data on how much carbon is stored in the world's forests<\/strong>, thereby helping to fill gaps in our knowledge of the carbon cycle and ultimately the Earth's climate system. Spring<\/strong><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\ud83c\udf33 The European Space Agency (ESA) has successfully launched its groundbreaking Biomass satellite, designed to provide unprecedented insight into the world\u2019s forests and their key role in the Earth\u2019s carbon cycle. The satellite launched aboard a Vega-C rocket from the European Space Agency\u2019s Kourou spaceport in French Guiana on April 29, 2025. Biomass separated from the upper part of the rocket less than [\u2026]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-klimaticka-zmena"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}