A multi-scale study reveals the impacts of California’s drought on iconic giant sequoias.
Projects Climate Change
Canopy water content is the most sensitive physiological measure of giant sequoia susceptibility to drought.
Imaging spectroscopy provides a way to monitor the vulnerability of giant sequoias to drought.
Multiple landscape-scale factors mediate species-specific tree mortality during drought.
Spectroscopic monitoring of canopy water loss predicts tree mortality during drought.
When it comes to drought tolerance, plant species matter.
A century of declining rainfall is closely tied to observed changes in forest structure and photosynthesis in Hawaii.
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.