Towering more than 40 metres high, the Douglas firs, coast redwoods and giant sequoias of the North American Pacific coast stand out as some of the world's tallest trees, according to a map charting the canopy height of Earth's forests.
Michael Lefsky at Colorado State University in Fort Collins created the map by using pulses of laser light sent from three NASA satellites. By observing how much longer it took the pulses to return from the ground than from the top of the tree canopy, Lefsky could estimate tree height.
The result could help to gauge arboreal biodiversity and to estimate how much carbon is stored in the world's trees.
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Remote sensing: Great heights. Nature 466, 535 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/466535a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/466535a
