Overview of Vegetation Lidar "MOLI"

Accurate measurements of forest biomass are important to evaluate its contribution to the global carbon cycle. Forest biomass correlates with forest canopy height; therefore, global measurements of canopy height enable a more precise understanding of the global carbon cycle. A vegetation lidar named "MOLI" which is designed to measure accurate canopy height has been studied by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in cooperation with some researchers. MOLI stands for Multi-footprint Observation Lidar and Imager. The feature of MOLI is to set multi-footprints for improving the precision of canopy height, and we can find out whether ground surface is flat or slope because an angle of inclination affects the estimation of canopy height. MOLI is going to be mounted on the Exposed Facility (EF) of the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM, also known as "Kibo") on the International Space Station (ISS). Now, we are carrying out a feasibility study and some experiments. We introduce an overview and a status of MOLI.