Ural Federal University: Scientists Asked Roscosmos to Provide Data

Scientists of the Ural Federal University, specialists of the Ural-Carbon project, asked Roscosmos to help with access to satellite data. They are needed to quantify carbon fluxes and assess the potential of the country’s forested areas for carbon dioxide recycling. Due to recent events scientists have got problems: climate specialists have no access to satellite data from the European Space Agency, NASA, the Japanese Aerospace Agency and others. Konstantin Gribanov, a specialist of Ural Federal University’s Climate and Environmental Physics Laboratory, told about this issue at a press conference in TASS, dedicated to the plans of the Ural-Carbon polygon.

“As a result of recent events, some of the data is blocked, we cannot take it. There are certain satellite data that Roscosmos provides. Therefore, within the framework of the carbon polygon we must, firstly, adapt to the new conditions, which means using the remaining data, and secondly, ask Roscosmos to cooperate with us. Since in our country the process of transferring data to scientists is somewhat worse, I would like to ask Roscosmos to start developing these technologies. I am ready to participate in discussions and formulate the agenda of works related to the ecology of large territories,” says Konstantin Gribanov.

The researchers’ main request concerns data from multispectral space cameras, which take pictures of the surface in several spectral ranges and calculate vegetation indices. That is, they estimate the amount of well-grown greenery on the territory of the country. The scientists’ main goal is to create artificial intelligence-based models that will link ground-based data on carbon fluxes into the ecosystem or vice versa with vegetation indices seen by satellites.

“In addition, there is a need to develop sensors that allow us to estimate the concentration of carbon dioxide in the near-surface layer of the earth. So far, these have been foreign devices that provide snapshots of each area of the earth’s surface every two days. These images can be used to track how the vegetation component of an area changes as the seasons change, and can be linked to carbon flux data. When this technology is developed, it will allow for expanded research and estimation of carbon fluxes across the country, including from hard-to-reach places. Under the current conditions, I think there is a reason to start developing similar domestic satellite platforms,” Gribanov adds.