“Quantifying the ability of protected ecosystems to store planet-warming carbon has long been a challenge for researchers. That’s largely because older, flat satellite imagery can’t distinguish how tall or wide trees were.

“We can use these new satellite data streams to monitor forest benefits in three dimensions and do the carbon piece of this in a way we never were able to before,” said Laura Duncanson, a remote sensing scientist at the University of Maryland and one of the authors of a study based on the new data.”

Read more of the New York Times article here!