Projects Climate Change

A high-winged twin engine airplane glides over the forest canopy, shooting laser beams into the woodlands. But this aircraft and the lasers beaming from it are not a scene in a science fiction film or even a military training exercise. They are on a mission to find life and death within the trees scattered across the forests of the Sierra Nevada.

Since its inception in 2006, CAO has produced interesting data art for numerous scientific journals. Making the December 2016 cover of Ecological Applications, this image shows CAO’s Visible-to-Shortwave Infrared (VSWIR) imaging spectrometer data over a reforested landscape in Panama. Different colors indicate differences in growth rates among tropical trees.

A letter of thanks from CAO Principal Investigator Greg Asner
November 2016 marks the tenth anniversary of the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO) program. In recognition of this milestone, made possible by a special team and our visionary donors, we celebrate discovery, ecological conservation, and environmental action driven by CAO science and technology.