Remote sensing technologies may facilitate the measurement of some key forest properties which, when combined with other information contained in various computer models, may allow for the quantification of critical forest functions. This book explores how remote sensing and computer modeling can be combined to estimate changes in the carbon storage, or productivity, of forests - from the level of the leaf to the level of the globe.

This type of exercise of review and analysis for one component (carbon) of a relatively simple forest type is more generally useful in focusing thought and perhaps field research; critical knowledge gaps identified for pines presumably also apply to more complex forest ecosystems. This volume also serves to illustrate the value of comparative field studies, which in this case were totally unplanned and retrospective.