Biomass feasibility study

环境科学在21世纪世纪面临的主要挑战是提高我们对全球变化，包括气候变化和人类对地球表面和海洋的改变，将如何影响地球系统以及该系统的反馈的认识。空间测量对于了解物理、化学、生物和人为过程如何在这一全球综合系统中相互交织至关重要。在构成地球系统的三个领域（大气、海洋和陆地）中，陆地生物圈的状况、动态和演变是人们了解最少和最不确定的。这种不确定性贯穿了从地方到全球的整个范围。我们所知道的是，由于人类对粮食和其他资源的需求，陆地表面正在发生大规模和迅速的变化，对气候、生物多样性和可持续性造成严重后果。目前不存在适用于碳循环和地球系统模型的网格生物量信息，我们也没有生物多样性和森林管理调查所需的全球、一致、准确和经常更新的森林面积、结构和变化绘图。这一需求是迫切的，与NERC的优先事项有明确的相关性，但现有的地球观测任务或任何其他数据来源都无法满足这一需求。BIOMASS P波段雷达将为满足这一需要作出独特的重大贡献。它将大大提高我们量化碳循环的陆地部分及其与水循环的联系的能力，将提供对社会和生态系统具有重大意义的信息，并将有助于填补地球系统耦合模型所需数据方面的一个关键空白。

The primary challenge for the environmental sciences in the 21st century is to improve our knowledge on how global change, including climate change and human modifications of the Earth's surface and oceans, will affect the Earth system and the feedbacks in this system. Measurements from space are crucial to understanding how physical, chemical, biological and anthropogenic processes are intertwined in this global integrated system. Among the three domains (the atmosphere, ocean and land) making up the Earth system, the status, dynamics and evolution of the terrestrial biosphere are the least understood and most uncertain. This uncertainty runs across the whole gamut of scales, from local to global. What we do know is that the land surface is suffering large-scale and rapid changes in response to human demands for food and other resources, with serious consequences for climate, biodiversity and sustainability. Current gridded biomass information suitable for carbon cycle and Earth system models does not exist, nor do we have the global, consistent, accurate and frequently updated mapping of forest area, structure and change needed for biodiversity and forest management investigations. This need is urgent and has explicit relevance to NERC priorities, but is not met by existing Earth Observation missions or any other data source. The BIOMASS P-band radar will provide a unique, major contribution to meeting this need. It will significantly improve our ability to quantify the terrestrial component of the carbon cycle and its links to the water cycle, will provide information of major importance for societies and ecosystems, and will help to fill a crucial gap in the data requirements for coupled models of the Earth System.