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Full catalog/CMS_CONUS_Biomass_1752
CMS_CONUS_Biomass_1752·v1·dataset

Where carbon is stored across the US (modeled)

Carbon Pools across CONUS using the MaxEnt Model, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2016, and 2017
biosphere NASA ORNL_CLOUD Level 4 GeoTIFF
In plain English

What it measures. Year-by-year estimates of how much carbon is stored across the United States, split into six pools such as living forest wood above and below ground, dead wood, leaf litter, and soil. It covers selected years between 2005 and 2017.

How it's made. Produced by a computer model that blends satellite and aircraft imagery, radar, and elevation data with on-the-ground forest survey measurements, all lined up on a common grid.

How & where you'd use it. Helps scientists and policymakers understand where carbon is locked up in American landscapes, track changes over time, and inform climate and forest management decisions.

What's measured

BIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › BIOMASSBIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › LITTER CHARACTERISTICSLAND SURFACE › SOILS › CARBONBIOSPHERE › ECOSYSTEMS › TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS › FORESTS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2005-01-01 → 2017-12-31
  • Measured byLANDSAT-5 (TM) · SPACE SHUTTLES (SRTM) · ALOS (PALSAR) · FIELD SURVEYS (Computer, SURVEYING TOOLS) · Aqua (MODIS) · ALOS-2 (PALSAR-2) · LANDSAT-8 (OLI) · MODELS (Computer)
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • Spatial extent-130.233, 21.5875, -64.1285, 52.8561
  • FormatsGeoTIFF
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map vegetation, forests and biomass
  • Monitor ecosystem productivity and carbon
  • Support habitat and biodiversity studies
Official description

This dataset provides annual estimates of six carbon pools, including forest aboveground live biomass, belowground biomass, aboveground dead biomass, belowground dead biomass, litter, and soil organic matter, across the conterminous United States (CONUS) for 2005, 2010, 2015, 2016, and 2017. Carbon stocks were estimated using a modified MaxEnt model. Measurements of pixel-specific site conditions from remote sensing data were combined with field inventory data from the U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA). Remote sensing data inputs included Thematic Mapper on Landsat 5, Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Aqua, microwave radar measurements from Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) on Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS) and PALSAR-2 ALOS-2, airborne imagery from National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP), and the digital elevation model from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). Data from satellite and airborne sources were co-registered on a common 100 m (1 ha) grid.

Get the data

cms_conus_biomass_1752_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="CMS_CONUS_Biomass_1752",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ORNL_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.