Evaluation of NISAR Biomass Algorithm in Temperate and Boreal Forests

The structure of forests, in terms of mass and the three-dimensional arrangement of individual trees, is a direct indicator of how much carbon is stored in the ecosystem, which in turn, has a profound effect on how the ecosystem functions and cycles carbon, water, and nutrients ( Shugart et al., 2010 ). There is an increased need to understand local to global storage and dynamics of carbon in terrestrial vegetation, as carbon storage is a prerequisite to understanding the coupling of the biosphere to other components of Earth systems including the climate ( Luyssaert et al., 2008 ). By focusing on live carbon pool, the above ground biomass (AGB) can be estimated from algorithmic modeling using remote sensing data. Low-frequency Radar backscatter, among others, has unique advantages due to its sensitivity to forest AGB and potentially at fine spatial and temporal resolutions ( Le Toan et al., 2011 ; Mitchard et al., 2009 ).