Scientists have been able to map several billion trees in the African Sahel region. This was reported by the press service of the University of Copenhagen.
In the last few decades, scientists have concluded that the climate is getting warmer and warmer due to human activities. This is primarily due to the effects of carbon dioxide, which creates a greenhouse effect. As the main measure to combat this, scientists, activists and politicians recommend reducing emissions from industry. However, as a compromise, companies can plant trees to offset the carbon dioxide they emit.
To control these measures effectively, scientists from the University of Copenhagen, together with NASA, have developed a method that allows you to count the number of trees in large areas of the world and find out how much carbon is sequestered in each tree.
The authors used a database of 300,000 very high resolution satellite images of the African Sahel region. The images were combined into a mosaic showing a view from above. Next, artificial intelligence based on a NASA supercomputer was trained to identify individual trees—for example, an acacia from its flat top. It turned out that the algorithm could indeed count trees in the area and assess their environmental impact.
Thus, it turned out that the arid region of the Sahel is home to about 10 billion trees. These trees currently store 840,000,000 tons of carbon.