Access and search ESA Climate Change Initiative data products via our dedicated CCI Biomass data portal. Search for "above ground biomass" and the latest AGB maps (Version 7.0), which can be downloaded.
The above ground biomass (AGB) of vegetation is defined as the mass, expressed as oven-dry weight, of all plant components, including the wood (stem, bark, branches, twigs and above ground roots) and foliage. Stumps and below ground roots are excluded. The AGB of woody vegetation (trees and shrubs forming forests, woodlands or scrublands) is expressed in tonnes (t) or Megagrams (Mg) per hectare (ha-1).
ESA’s Climate Change Initiative (CCI) Biomass project currently provides global maps of AGB (Mg ha-1) at 100 m spatial resolution annually for 2005-2012 and 2015-2024 along with per pixel estimates of AGB uncertainty, expressed as the standard deviation in Mg ha-1 .
AGB change maps between selected years (also expressed as Mg ha-1) are available alongside a python-based tool that allows for interactive exploration of differences in AGB. A cost function that preserves the temporal features as expressed in the remote sensing data has been refined to limit biases between the 2007-2010 and maps generated from 2015 onwards. The AGB change product consists of two sets of maps with these being the standard deviation of the AGB change and a quality flag of the AGB change.
Aggregated products of the AGB and AGB change data layers are available at coarser spatial resolutions (1, 10, 25 and 50 km). Data are provided in both netcdf and geotiff format.
Key reference: Santoro, M.; Cartus, O. (2025): ESA Biomass Climate Change Initiative (Biomass_cci): Global datasets of forest above-ground biomass for the years 2007, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, v6.0. NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis, 17 April 2025. doi:10.5285/95913ffb6467447ca72c4e9d8cf30501. https://dx.doi.org/10.5285/95913ffb6467447ca72c4e9d8cf30501