Earth’s forests play a critical role in keeping our planet habitable.
Often called the “lungs of the Earth,” forests cover nearly one-third of the planet and absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They also produce oxygen so we can breathe. According to NASA , forests worldwide absorb about 7.6 billion metric tons of CO2 each year.
But that’s just an estimate because human industrial activities continue to put more Earth-warning greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Understanding how our forests respond to the increases in greenhouse gas emissions and threats to their existence, such as deforestation and wildfires, is challenging because of the dense vegetation and hard-to-penetrate canopies…