“We show that if one considers that clouds tend to form more frequently over forested areas, then planting trees over large areas is advantageous and should be done for climate purposes. Amilcare Porporato, a civil and environmental engineer at Princeton University and co-author of the study
So many of the world’s forests have been cut down, burned and the land used for urbanization and agriculture. The result has been devastating for biodiversity and for the CO2 sequestration sink that helps keep our planet within the habitable zone for life to flourish.
We see the tropical rainforests going through a similar experience as the hardwood forests centuries earlier. In the subpolar regions, the vast expanse of the Taiga (primarily conifer forests) is burning from climate change, amplifying negative feedbacks in a vicious cycle of destruction that turns a sink of carbon into a source. This only warms the world faster.
Now scientists at Princeton University have released a new study that finds planting deciduous forests would help cool the planet.
From The Smithsonian Magazine:
A new study shows that reforestation does more than shield the Earth with green leaves—it produces clouds that also protect the planet from the sun’s rays. It seems like a no-brainer, but if we plant forests, it could cool the climate—more than previously thought.
Researchers at Princeton University discovered that many climate models don’t take into account the clouds produced by forested areas, resulting in cooler temperatures. Other scientists were concerned that trees in midaltitude regions—temperate areas between the tropics and polar zones—would not be effective in controlling the climate when they lost their leaves in winter, reports Gustaf Kilander for the Independent.
Some scientists questioned the benefit of replanting forests in midaltitude regions because of albedo—the ability of the Earth’s surface to reflect sunlight—when deciduous trees lose leaves during cold seasons, reports Martin Woolridge in the Daily Guardian. The Princeton researchers point out that theory ignores an important consideration.
Published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study shows that reduced albedo is more than offset by the considerable clouds created by these forests when leafed trees release moisture into the atmosphere.
“The main thing is that nobody has known whether planting trees at midlatitudes is good or bad because of the albedo problem,” Porporato says. “We show that if one considers that clouds tend to form more frequently over forested areas, then planting trees over large areas is advantageous and should be done for climate purposes.”
There is always a reaction to an action that we might take. Rewilding large swathes of the mid-latitudes would be of enormous benefit for the climate. But. The mid-latitudes produce a lot of the world’s food; with climate change already affecting the food supply who will decide to condemn millions to starvation by repurposing agricultural land with forests? Oh, what a tangled web we have weaved.
The article ends with a final quote from Amilcare Porporato.
“So many things are connected in the earth system. The nature of interactions between, for example, the water cycle and climate mean that if you change one thing, it’s very difficult to predict how other parts of the system will be affected.”
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