Above: Mountains of Alaska from NASA's B-200 plane as it flew to the Arctic circle. Credit Charles Miller

May 21, 2026

In the far north regions of Earth, where forests stretch across Alaska and Canada, climate change is unfolding at an accelerated pace.

Arctic and boreal regions are warming two to four times faster than the global average, putting immense pressure on an ecosystem that is quietly helping to absorb CO2 and keep climate change at bay. Through the process of photosynthesis, these expansive regions of plant life naturally pull carbon out of the atmosphere and sequester it in their biomass.

However, as climate-related disturbances like wildfires and drought increase, parts of this region may shift from sequestering carbon to releasing it, causing shifts in the delicate balance of the global carbon scale. Understanding exactly how much carbon these terrestrial ecosystems store or release is an important piece of the puzzle for climate mitigation efforts, but the analysis is often tricky.

A new paper by University of Utah postdoctoral researcher Wanwan Liang and Assistant Professor of Biology Jon Wang aims to improve understanding and access to datasets mapping aboveground biomass (AGB) in North American Arctic and Boreal regions. Published in Environmental Research Letters, the paper evaluates the growing number of satellite-based aboveground biomass datasets. “There are so many datasets out there now,” Liang explains, “but there’s very little guidance for users on how to choose among them.”

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To address that problem, Liang and her collaborators conducted a large-scale meta-analysis, comparing nine biomass datasets across North America’s Arctic and boreal regions. Rather than declaring a single “best” map, the study identifies which datasets are most reliable for specific uses, from tracking wildfire impacts to estimating national carbon budgets.

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