Restoring the climate using AI

Prof. Dr. Thomas Crowther, Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich

Millions marching the streets, daily articles in every newspaper and heartfelt pleas: never before has the topic of climate change been so omnipresent. The problem: We only have 11 years left to reverse the 300 Gt of extra carbon we have emitted to the atmosphere over the last few hundred years – but first we need to know how. While historic ecological attempts to understand the regulation of the climate and the carbon cycle were based purely on satellite data, this approach could not tell us what is going on below the canopy – a crucial piece of knowledge as the vast majority of the Earth’s carbon is stored in the soil. By using machine learning to pair satellite imagery with the biggest set of ground-sourced data, containing over 30 million tree and 400’000 soil data points, the Crowther Lab was the first research group to successfully map the Earth’s current and potential tree cover. The results show: planting trees is the most efficient and direct solution to climate change. How? Learn more in Prof. Thomas Crowther’s keynote speech, where he talks about the Earth’s restoration potential, its effect on our carbon household, and how biodiversity is not only a gift, but a necessity.

Talk in English