The forest-height map could aid the ongoing effort to estimate the amount of carbon tied up in Earth’s forests and to explain what sops up 2 billion tonnes of “missing” carbon each year. Humans ...

The resulting map, which will be published in Geophysical Research Letters, gives the tree height of all of the world’s forests. “As these maps improve, they are going to give us our first ...

While the map aims to establish and serve as a baseline for conservation initiatives, the AI model could be used to predict canopy heights in areas where high-quality data aren’t available.

Global average height increased steadily until the 1980s with little fluctuation. Chart showing average global height over time, increasing since the late 1800s and plateauing in the 1980s.