THE DESIRE OF THE TERRESTRIAL SCIENCE COMMUNITY IS TO HAVE ACCURATE GLOBAL PRODUCTS OF TERRAIN HEIGHTS CANOPY HEIGHTS AND CANOPY COVER AT A MODERATE SPATIAL RESOLUTION. PREVIOUS GLOBAL CANOPY HEIGHT PRODUCT SUCH AS SIMARDS CANOPY HEIGHT WERE PRODUCED USING ICESAT AND MODIS AND SUBSEQUENTLY HAD A RELATIVELY HIGH RMSE OF OVER 6 M. THE LARGE FOOTPRINT OF ICFSAT 2 HOWEVER LIMITED THE CANOPY HEIGHT ESTIMATES TO AREAS OF LOW TOPOGRAPHIC RELIEF. ICESAT 2 WITH ITS HIGH REPETITION SHOULD NOT SUFFER FROM THE TOPOGRAPHIC LIMITATIONS OF ICESAT. ICFSAT 2 AND ATL08WILL REPORT ESTIMATES OF TERRAIN AND CANOPY HEIGHT AT 100 M INCREMENTS ALONG THE ORBIT PATH. ALTHOUGH ICESAT 2 PRODUCTS MAY NOT BE AT THE SPATIAL RESOLUTION DESIRED FOR SOME LOCAL STUDIES IT WILL BE ABLE TO PRODUCE THE KEY ELEMENTS AT A RESOLUTION THAT WILL BE OF GREAT IMPORTANCE PARTICULARLY FOR GLOBAL CLIMATE MODELS. WHERE ICESAT 2 WILL BE CHALLENGED IS IN AREAS OF DENSE FOLIAGE SUCH AS TROPICAL FORESTS AS THERE ARE LIKELY NOT ENOUGH PHOTONS CAPABLE OF DERIVING ACCURATE ESTIMATES OF TERRAIN AND CANOPY HEIGHTS. BY COMBINING DATA PRODUCTS FROM BOTH ICESAT-2 AND GEDI WE INCREASE THE POTENTIAL ACCURACY AND SUBSEQUENT USABILITY FOR BOTH DATA SETS. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A GRIDDED PRODUCT DERIVED. FROM ICESAT 2 AND GEDI WILL LIKELY SERVE AS THEFOUNDATION FOR FUTURE TERRESTRIAL AND CLIMATE STUDIES.

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

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