Several members of the GEDI Science Definition Team (SDT) attended the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, held from 11 to 15 December in New Orleans, LA. Seven members presented work on different aspects of the current status of the GEDI mission. AGU fall meeting has been a great opportunity in the past years to spread the word about the GEDI mission and the promising data that will become available for many geophysic applications. This year, was a great success as well. The scientific community was updated by Dr. Ralph Dubayah (GEDI Principal Investigator) on the current status of the mission and the proposed data algorithms and calibration/validation strategies. Dr. Kellner explained more in-depth about the proposed near-global biomass product, focussing on the algorithm development of the footprint-level biomass product. Dr. Duncanson elaborated on this by showing case study results from simulated GEDI, ICESAT2 and NISAR data fusion, in preparation for fully global biomass product. All oral presentations were attended well as the scientific community is excited for the data GEDI will collect and curious towards its possible applications and the algorithms the SDT is proposing to process the data. Steve Hancock, Suzanne Marselis, Paul Patterson, and Wenlu Qi all presented posters to communicate their work on the GEDI mission to the broader public. A GEDI happy hour was held on Wednesday December 13th, where many collaborators, data providers and SDT members came together to discuss the progress of GEDI and nourish scientific relationships. The presence of GEDI SDT members at AGU was a great success, new collaborations were initiated and old connections renewed. The SDT team is already excited for next year’s AGU fall meeting, happening in Washington, DC in december 2018.

Dubayah, R. and the GEDI Science Team. (2017). The GEDI strategy for improved mapping of forest biomass and structure. AGU Fall Meeting 2017, New Orleans, LA, USA. B11H-06.

Duncanson, L., Simard, M., Thomas, N., Neuenschwander, A., Hancock, S., Armston, J., Dubayah, R., Hofton, M.A., Huang, W., Tang, H., Marselis, S.M., Fatoyinbo, T. (2017). Fusion of GEDI, ICESAT2 & NISAR data for above ground biomass mapping in Sonoma County, California. AGU Fall Meeting 2017, New Orleans, LA, USA. B33F-06.

Hancock, S., Armston, J., Tang, H., Patterson, P.L., Healey, S.P., Marselis, S., Duncanson, L., Hofton, M.A., Kellner, J.R., Luthcke, S.B., Sun, X., Blair, J.B., Dubayah, R. (2017). The GEDI Performance Tool. AGU Fall Meeting 2017, New Orleans, LA, USA. B13A-1753.

Kellner, J.R., Armston, J., Blair, J.B., Duncanson, L., Hancock, S., Hofton, M.A., Luthcke, S.B., Marselis, S., Tang, H., Dubyaha, R. (2017). Algorithm theoretical basis for GEDI level-4A footprint aboveground biomass density. AGU Fall Meeting 2017, New Orleans, LA, USA. B33F-03.

Marselis, S., Tang, H., Blair, J.B., Hofton, M.A., Armston, J., Dubayah, R. (2017). Characterizing Exterior and Interior Tropical Forest Structure Variability with Full-Waveform Airborne LIDAR Data in Lopé, Gabon. AGU Fall Meeting 2017, New Orleans, LA, USA. B21B-1961.

Patterson, P.L., Healey, S.P., Ståhl, G., Saarela, S., Holm, S., Dubayah, R., Hancock, S. (2017). Statistical Properties for hybrid estimators of biomass that use GEDI waveform data. AGU Fall Meeting 2017, New Orleans, LA, USA. B13A-1755.

Qi, W., Hancock, S., Armston, J., Marselis, S., Dubayah, R. (2017). Forest biomass mapping from fusion of GEDI lidar data and TanDEM-X InSAR data. AGU Fall Meeting 2017, New Orleans, LA, USA. B13A-1752.