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Greg Asner

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Gregory P. Asner is an American ecologist whose global work has focused on ecosystems, conservation, and climate sciences. He has developed technology to access and analyze large amounts of data about ecosystems, including assessing carbon emissions, coral reef resilience, and biodiversity. He is the founder of the Global Airborne Observatory (GAO, formerly the Carnegie Airborne Observatory, or CAO)[6] and the creator of Carnegie Landsat Analysis System (CLAS) and CLASlite. Since 2019, he has been the Director of Arizona State University's Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science. He is also managing director of the Allen Coral Atlas, an online map of all the coral reefs in the world used as a reference for reef conservation.[4][7]

Greg Asner
Gregory P. Asner, American ecologist
Born1968 or 1969 (age 55–56)[1]
EducationB.S. Engineering (Radiative Physics), University of Colorado Boulder, 1991
M.S. Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, 1995[2]
Ph.D. Biology, University of Colorado Boulder, 1997[1][3]
Occupation(s)Director of Arizona State University's Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science[2] and Managing Director, The Allen Coral Atlas[4]
SpouseRobin Martin[5]
Websiteasnerlab.org

Asner's work mapping forests and coral reefs using airplanes and satellites influenced environmental policy decisions in several countries.[8][9] He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a 2017 Heinz Award recipient.

Early career

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Asner grew up in Maryland, then earned an undergraduate degree in engineering and moved to Hawaii.[10] In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was a deep-sea diver in the United States Navy, an experience that initiated his career in ecology.[3] He worked for the nonprofit The Nature Conservancy in Hawaii in the early 1990s.[1][11] As a result of his work there, he published his first scientific paper, assessing damage done to forests in Kaua'i after Hurricane Iniki in 1992.[12] After his early experiences collecting ecological data in Hawaii, he began working on ways to measure human impacts on ecosystems around the world.[9]

In 1996, NASA selected Asner, then a student at University of Colorado Boulder, as a recipient of one of its Earth System Science Graduate Student Fellowships.[13] He earned his Ph.D. in biology in 1997.[3] Subsequently, he turned his focus to creating better ways to gather data about the status of natural resources.[11] In 1999, Asner began working on CLAS, a new system to map the effects of logging on rainforests.[1] As of September 2017, Asner's team had provided CLASlite, the successor to CLAS, to 5,000 scientists in 137 countries for free in order to assist in collecting data about forest health and inform conservation decisions.[14]

Asner moved his laboratory and research program from the University of Colorado to the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology in 2001.[9] In addition to the airborne CAO – which officially launched in 2006[15] – the team collected ecological data using satellite sensors and computer modeling.[9]

In 2005, after nearly a decade of research, Asner published a study of logging in the Amazon rainforest demonstrating that "selective logging" is often as harmful to ecosystems as clear-cutting.[16] That same year, he and Peter Vitousek published research showing early indicators of an invasive species of tree growing in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.[17] Popular Science named Asner to its annual "Brilliant Ten" list in 2007.[16]

Work mapping forests and coral reefs

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Asner led the team that developed, over the course of 15 years, Airborne Taxonomic Mapping System (AToMS), an advanced technology that uses sensors in a Dornier 228 airplane to map the Earth.[1][3] AToMS uses spectrometers, lasers, and other tools to generate three-dimensional models of forests.[10] With this technology the GAO can analyze the components of trees' foliage in order to identify which species make up different parts of forests. This granular data helps governments make decisions to protect biodiversity and reduce carbon footprints.[18] For example, maps he has created have guided decisions about creating new national parks in Peru and supporting lion habitats in South Africa.[6] His data has also shown that the Amazon contains 36 types of forest, a level of variation not previously understood.[19] By 2019, Asner and his wife Robin Martin have identified the "spectral signatures" of half of the world's 60,000 tree species.[6]

Throughout his career, Asner has worked to make his research accessible to government leaders and other people in positions of power. His work has influenced conservation policy decisions in the United States, South America and Southeast Asia.[8] He has worked with multiple countries to help measure the carbon locked in their forests. In 2009, he used lidar to map the carbon in 4.3 million hectares (17 thousand square miles) of Peruvian Amazon and provided the results to the Peruvian government.[12][1] In 2013, his data highlighted the environmental impact of gold mining and deforestation in Peru.[20] Also in 2013, he and the CAO team contributed data to a carbon map of the entirety of Panama, the first time a whole country had been mapped in that way.[21]

The next year, Asner's CAO team released a 69-page report on Peru's rainforests to its Ministry of the Environment.[22] As a result of this research, Norway gave $300 million to Peru in late 2014 to protect Peru's forests and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.[10] By January 2017, Asner had mapped all 78 million hectares (300 thousand square miles) of the Peruvian Amazon.[19] Asner has mapped 14 million hectares (54 thousand square miles) of forests in Colombia.[1] As of July 2012, his team had mapped the carbon stocks of 40 percent of the Colombian Amazon.[23] He has used similar technology to evaluate the health of coral reefs according to their coloring as observed from a plane.[24][25] In 2015, he led a study of how the 2011–2017 California drought was affecting the state's forests, [26][5] finding that approximately 20 percent of forests in the state were dead or would die.[27][5] He continued the work in 2016 while associated with Stanford University.[28] Governor Jerry Brown decided to declare a state of emergency in California partly due to this data.[8]

In 2018, Asner and the CAO mapped coral reef health in the Dominican Republic in a collaboration of Asner’s Reefscape Project, The Nature Conservancy, and the private company Planet.[29] Their data assisted the design of the largest marine protected area in the Dominican Republic.[6]

After flying more than 200 missions in 2018, Asner and the CAO team (now renamed to GAO) moved to Arizona State University in January 2019.[15] That year, his team conducted a project mapping coral reefs along the Hawaiian islands. The goal of the project was to assess damage done by ocean warming, overfishing, and coastal development.[30] That July, Asner's team created a website where users can report coral bleaching they have observed.[25] That month, the team launched a network of 140 small satellites to monitor coral health near Hawaii.[31] As of April 2020, they were using data from Planet and the ICESat-2 satellite for further research on coral reef health.[32]

In September 2021, the Allen Coral Atlas, of which Asner is managing director, announced it had completed a comprehensive map of the world's coral reefs, compiled using more than 2 million satellite images.[4]

Honors

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Asner received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2000.[33][34] In 2013, the National Academy of Sciences elected Asner as a member.[35] The Remote Sensing Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers gave him its Outstanding Contribution Award in 2014.[36] In 2015, he became a fellow of the American Geophysical Union,[37] and in 2016, he became a fellow of the Ecological Society of America.[38] Asner received a $250,000 Heinz Award in 2017 for his work with the CAO mapping coral reefs and rainforests.[8][39]

Selected publications

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g Yong, Ed (22 February 2012). "Logging the Amazon: the race to map Earth's threatened rainforests". Wired UK. No. March 2012. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  2. ^ a b "Gregory Asner". Arizona State University. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  3. ^ a b c d Verger, Rob (30 July 2019). "What one ecologist's high-flying studies reveal about our forests". Popular Science. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  4. ^ a b c Jones, Caleb (8 September 2021). "Researchers complete first-ever detailed map of global coral". PBS NewsHour. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  5. ^ a b c Curwen, Thomas (20 October 2015). "X-ray technology reveals California's forests are in for a radical transformation". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  6. ^ a b c d Tullis, Paul (10 June 2019). "To Map a Coral Reef, Peel Back the Seawater". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  7. ^ Rosane, Olivia. "First-ever high-resolution map of world's coral reefs is complete". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  8. ^ a b c d "Ecologist wins Heinz environment prize for airborne mapping that informs policy". Mongabay. 14 September 2017. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  9. ^ a b c d "Gregory Asner, PhD". National Geographic's Strange Days on Planet Earth. PBS. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  10. ^ a b c Secorun Palet, Laura (22 January 2015). "Ecologist's Airborne Scanners See The Forest And The Trees — All Of Them". NPR. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  11. ^ a b "Working at 15,000 Feet, Greg Asner Is Still Firmly Rooted on Hawaiian Soil". Environment Hawai`i. April 2008. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  12. ^ a b Tollefson, Jeff (21 October 2009). "Climate: Counting carbon in the Amazon". Nature. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  13. ^ Asrar, Ghassem (January–February 1996). "NASA Selects 50 New Graduate Student Fellows in Response to the Earth System Science Graduate Student Fellowship Announcement". The Earth Observer. 8 (1): 41–42. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  14. ^ "Ecologist wins Heinz environment prize for airborne mapping that informs policy". Mongabay. 14 September 2017. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  15. ^ a b "A Remote Sensing Partnership Made in Paradise". The National Ecological Observatory Network. 1 November 2019. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  16. ^ a b Mone, Gregory; Wenner, Melinda; Thompson, Kalee; Aaronson, Lauren; Svoboda, Elizabeth (3 October 2007). "PopSci's 6th Annual Brilliant Ten". Popular Science. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  17. ^ Graham, Sarah (8 March 2005). "Remote Measurements Reveal Invading Species Early On". Scientific American. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  18. ^ Greene, Sean (27 January 2017). "These colorful new maps reveal the hidden diversity of life in Peru's Andean and Amazonian forests". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  19. ^ a b Yong, Ed (26 January 2017). "How a Scientist Mapped the Entire Peruvian Amazon by Plane". The Atlantic. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  20. ^ Jacobs, Harrison (2 November 2013). "This Map Shows How Gold Mining Is Destroying The Amazon Rainforest". Business Insider. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  21. ^ "Research team creates first carbon map of an entire country: Panama". Smithsonian Insider. 23 July 2013. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  22. ^ Catanoso, Justin (30 July 2014). "Peru's first-ever high-resolution carbon map could help the world breathe easier". National Geographic. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  23. ^ Tollefson, Jeff (26 July 2012). "Carnegie advances carbon mapping in Colombia". Nature. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  24. ^ "Hawaii considers banning certain sunscreens to protect coral reefs". CBS News. 17 August 2017. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  25. ^ a b Calma, Justine (1 November 2019). "Satellites Track Real-Time Damage of Ocean Blob Menacing Hawaii". The Verge. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  26. ^ Greene, Sean (31 December 2015). "New maps show spread and impact of drought on California forests". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  27. ^ Bliss, Laura (6 November 2015). "What Will California Do With Millions of Dead Tr". CityLab. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  28. ^ Alexander, Kurtis (6 August 2016). "An eye-opening flight over California's dying forests". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  29. ^ Fox, Alex (8 June 2018). "Super plane, satellites help map the Caribbean's hidden coral reefs". Mongabay. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  30. ^ Reinhart, Katelyn (11 April 2019). "ASU center to assist in Hawaii coral conservation efforts". The State Press. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  31. ^ Tollefson, Jeff (4 October 2019). "Coral-tracking satellites monitor reef bleaching in near-real time". Nature. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  32. ^ Voosen, Paul (14 April 2020). "Ice-tracking space laser could also map sea floor and monitor health of coral reefs". Science. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  33. ^ "President Honors Outstanding Young Scientists". Office of Science and Technology Policy (Press release). The White House. 11 April 2000. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  34. ^ Wei, Ming-Ying (January–February 2000). "Two Earth Scientists Receive the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)". The Earth Observer. 12 (1): 59. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  35. ^ "Gregory P. Asner". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  36. ^ "Outstanding Contribution Award". AAG Remote Sensing Specialty Group. American Association of Geographers. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  37. ^ "American Geophysical Union Announces 2015 Fellows". American Geophysical Union (Press release). 28 July 2015. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  38. ^ "Ecological Society of America announces 2016 fellows". The Ecological Society of America (Press release). 1 June 2016. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  39. ^ "Heinz Awards - Greg Asner".
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