ESA BIOMASS: Modelling Amazon Rainforest Responses to Environmental Change

The 2024 BIOMASS Summer School (21–25 October, Jena) focused on biomass and the carbon cycle, with lectures and hands-on sessions on ESA’s BIOMASS mission, SAR remote sensing, and ecosystem monitoring. Hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, it brought together experts and early-career scientists to advance methods for measuring, modeling, and understanding global biomass dynamics.

In a highly engaging presentation, Anja Ramming (Technical University of Munich, School of Life Sciences) takes us into the tropical rainforest of the Amazon Basin. The Amazon rainforest is characterized by its rich biodiversity and serves as a major reservoir for the uptake and storage of carbon. Furthermore, its water cycle plays a crucial role in regulating the climate. This presentation provides insights into how these fluxes of matter in the Amazon rainforest can be modeled.