Forests act as carbon sinks and the loss of these is of great concern to many in the climate change movement. There are a number of variables that can be used to calculate the loss which are listed below.

1 -Forest ecology, forest type: This determines the maximum biomass content and general properties of growth dynamics. Professional forest inventory at this level should determine general quantities of the forest tree associations and density, basic wood density, average height and allometric equations of the forest type.

2 - Reflectance of forest canopy. This can be through the different Bands using a radiometer. Consider using minimum, maximum and average

3 - DVI - Difference Vegetation index

4 - TVI - Transformed Vegetation Index

5 - RDVI - Re-normalised Difference Vegetation index

6 - MSR - Modified Simple Ratio (See Chen 1996)

7 - SVI - Spectral Vegetation Index

8 - ABG - Above Ground Biomass estimates

Given this range of variables (plus the different aspects of them such as min. and max.) there has yet to be a definitive list that can be accurately measured to give a consistently exact answer.