The Man Who Smells Forests

Standing almost 20 meters above the forest floor on a scaffolding tower in the Sierra Nevada, Allen Goldstein, with Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division, looks over the spiky tops of a young ponderosa pine forest. He inhales deeply before explaining the forest’s daily chemical rhythm. At sunrise, the trees start pumping out a complex mix of volatile organic compounds, such as pine-scented terpenes. More>