The research on the effects of global warming is very varied. Through projects carried out in cooperation with NASA and The Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute, INA is working to see if LIDAR can be used to discover short term changes in woody growth around the tree line in alpine areas.
Global warming will probably lead to:
1) A shift of the tree line in alpine areas
2) Changes in forest boundaries between the boreal forest and arctic areas
3) increased woody growth in these transititional areas
Through different projects in cooperation with NASA and The Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute, INA is working to see if LIDAR can be used to discover short term changes in woody growth around the tree line in alpine areas.
INA is also exploring the level of detail that LIDAR is able to detect (establishing new trees). This can have great significance for LIDAR as a detectional tool in studies of climate effects on woody vegetation.
The institute is also developing a national reference line from Telemark in the South, to Troms in the North. This line is to be used in studies of long term changes along the tree line along hundreds of transitional zones between forest and alpine areas. This work is coordinated wtih NASA, who are establishing a similar reference line in North-America.