Humans have exploited forest biomass as a material and energy source for millennia, but population growth and increasing demand for resources have diminished the extent and condition of forests, with this impacting on the amount of carbon they store and exchange with the atmosphere. Increasingly, forests are being impacted by our changing climate. For this reason, the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) considers above-ground biomass (AGB; expressed in tonnes per hectare) as an Essential Climate Variable (ECV). Information on forest biomass can also play a much wider role in understanding and predicting climate, for example in model initialisation and testing, estimating carbon turnover and inferring forest disturbance regimes, and through data assimilation in carbon cycle and climate models.
Objective
The primary science objective of ESA’s Climate Change Initiative (CCI) Biomass project is to provide global maps of above-ground biomass (Mg ha-1) annually for selected epochs with supporting quantification of biomass change.
Current mapping is at 100 m grid spacing with a target relative error of less than 20 per cent where AGB exceeds 50 Mg ha-1. Although this resolution is finer than required for current climate modelling, the information provided can be exploited by both climate and carbon cycle models as they develop.
About the project
The global maps of the above ground biomass of woody vegetation and changes over time have and continue to be generated from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data acquired at C-band by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Sentinel 1A & B and L-band by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Advanced Land Observing Satellites (ALOS PALSAR, ALOS-2 PALSAR-2). The retrieval algorithm is informed by information on forest height and cover density extracted from spaceborne LIDAR, including NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation Lidar (GEDI). The combination of these sensor types allows information on the amounts of foliage and woody plant material to be retrieved over time.
The mapping builds on algorithms developed initially through ESA's GlobBiomass Project, with these advanced through ESA CCI Biomass. The quality of the maps is assessed against existing and new ground and airborne data sets. The resulting global biomass data sets represent new information that can be used to support climate and carbon cycle modelling.
Explore ESA's global biomass data record
The global maps of AGB (tonnes or Mg per hectare) for 2010 and annually from 2015 to 2021 can be viewed here. Interactively rotate and zoom into the globe and/or press play to explore the World's forests. You might want to observe how AGB changes with latitude or elevation or within and between biomes, such as the tropical, temperate and boreal zones; or how levels of AGB have changed as a consequence of deforestion or wildfires.
Science outcomes
The global maps of AGB provided across multiple epochs are providing new insights into how the carbon contained within the World's forests, woodlands and shrublands is changing in response to human activities and natural events and processes, including those influenced by climate change. Explore some of the major outcomes and discoveries arising from the CCI Biomass project and the new avenues we are exploring.
Outreach and Education
ESA CCI Biomass is involved in many activities that are showcasing and promoting the use of the global AGB maps for understanding the states and dynamics of carbon in forests globally.
ESA CCI Biomass has hosted two Biomass Change Workshops to gather insights in how best to quantify carbon losses and gains from time-series of above ground biomass maps. A third Workshop is being held on the 4-5th February in Berlin, Germany. Please email richard.lucas@aber.ac.uk if you would be interested to attend online or would like details of outcomes following the meeting.
The Forest Session of the UK STEMs POP25 featured Professor Richard Lucas from Aberystwyth University and John Remedios from the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO), who showcased ESA's new BIOMASS mission, the ESA CCI times series of global biomass maps and efforts aimed at restoring forests across the World.
The State-of-the-Art Forest Monitoring was the topic of an ESA-led UNFCCC side event, opened by ESA’s Frank Martin Seifert and involving expert forest scientist, explored how advanced satellite missions such as ESA’s Biomass mission – launched in April of 2025 and equipped its novel P-band space-based radar – are revealing new insights into the dynamics of tropical forest carbon storage.
Access and search ESA Climate Change Initiative data products via our dedicated CCI Biomass data portal. Search for "above ground biomass" and the latest AGB maps (Version 7.0), which can be downloaded.
The above ground biomass (AGB) of vegetation is defined as the mass, expressed as oven-dry weight, of all plant components, including the wood (stem, bark, branches, twigs and above ground roots) and foliage. Stumps and below ground roots are excluded. The AGB of woody vegetation (trees and shrubs forming forests, woodlands or scrublands) is expressed in tonnes (t) or Megagrams (Mg) per hectare (ha-1).
ESA’s Climate Change Initiative (CCI) Biomass project currently provides global maps of AGB (Mg ha-1) at 100 m spatial resolution annually for 2005-2012 and 2015-2024 along with per pixel estimates of AGB uncertainty, expressed as the standard deviation in Mg ha-1 .
AGB change maps between selected years (also expressed as Mg ha-1) are available alongside a python-based tool that allows for interactive exploration of differences in AGB. A cost function that preserves the temporal features as expressed in the remote sensing data has been refined to limit biases between the 2007-2010 and maps generated from 2015 onwards. The AGB change product consists of two sets of maps with these being the standard deviation of the AGB change and a quality flag of the AGB change.
Aggregated products of the AGB and AGB change data layers are available at coarser spatial resolutions (1, 10, 25 and 50 km). Data are provided in both netcdf and geotiff format.
Key reference: Santoro, M.; Cartus, O. (2025): ESA Biomass Climate Change Initiative (Biomass_cci): Global datasets of forest above-ground biomass for the years 2007, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, v6.0. NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis, 17 April 2025. doi:10.5285/95913ffb6467447ca72c4e9d8cf30501. https://dx.doi.org/10.5285/95913ffb6467447ca72c4e9d8cf30501
The ESA CCI Biomass team consists of leading scientists from 12 organisations in Europe. The project is led and managed by Professor Richard Lucas (University of Aberystwyth) and the Science Lead is Professor Shaun Quegan (Sheffield University).
To contact the CCI Biomass team email:
- Project Manager: Richard Lucas (University of Aberystwyth, UK)
- Project Coordinator: Anne Harris (University of Aberystwyth, UK)
- Science Leader: Shaun Quegan (University of Sheffield, UK)
- Alexandre Bouvet (Centre d'Etudes Spatiales de la Biosphère, France)
- Jérome Chave (Evolution et Diversité Biologique, France)
- Maurizio Santoro, Oliver Cartus and Andreas Wiesmann (Gamma Remote Sensing, Switzerland)
- Dmitry Schepaschenko (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria)
- Christiane Schmullius and Carsten Pathe (Earth Observation Services Jena, Germany)
- Philippe Ciais, (Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, France)
- Oliver Phillips (University of Leeds, UK)
- Heiko Baltzer, Nezha Acil (University of Leicester, UK)
- Martin Herold (GFZ Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, Netherlands
- ESA Technical Officer: Clement Albergel
To run this example yourself, go to https://dashboard.climate.hub-otc.eox.at/. You can register for free.
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