I do not think that this study
could be more misleading if one tried.
Vegetation moderates the climate and converts solar energy into retained
carbon. I certainly do not suppose that
the Sahara Desert in a global cooling agent
either. Vegetation consumes energy
during the day and releases it during the night. That is why it matters.
When solar energy cannot be
adsorbed and converted into stored energy, it is typically reflected out to
space in a very local manner.
My point though is that a forest
is an active carbon store house that naturally moderates local climate while
consuming a net energy as carbon. Far
less of the solar flux is released into the ‘climate’ as infrared energy or
heat and it is actually redistributed in the form of water vapor at night
spreading the effect of the input energy.
Properly optimizing forest cover
to meet a global standard will easily consume all surplus carbon while spreading
the availability of moderated climate. I
argue instead that afforestration is the one of only two answers to excessive
CO2 production.
Trees not cure for global warming
BY MARGARET MUNRO, POSTMEDIA NEWS JUNE 18, 2011
Planting trees may help appease travellers' guilt about pumping carbon
into the atmosphere.
But new research suggests it will do little to cool the planet,
especially when trees are planted in Canada and other northern countries, says
climatologist Alvaro Montenegro, at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova
Scotia.
"There is no magic bullet" for global warming, says Montenegro ,
"and trees are certainly not going to be providing it."
He assessed the impact of replanting forests on crop and marginal lands
with Environment Canada
researcher Vivek Arora. Their study, published Sunday in Nature Geoscience,
concludes "afforestation is not a substitute for reduced greenhouse-gas
emissions."
The United Nations, environmental groups and carbon-offset companies
are invested heavily in the idea that planting trees will help slow climate
change and global warming. International authorities have long described
"afforestation" as a key climate-change mitigation strategy.
But the study says the benefits of tree planting are
"marginal" when it comes to stopping the planet from overheating.
Trees do suck carbon out of the air, but the study highlights that
their dark leaves and needles also decrease the amount of solar radiation that
gets reflected by the landscape, which has a warming effect.
Cropland - especially snow-covered cropland - has a cooling effect
because it reflects a lot more solar energy than forests, the scientists say.
This so-called "albedo effect" is important and needs to be
incorporated into assessments of tree planting programs and projects, the
researchers say.
But planting trees will have only a modest effect on the global
temperature, according to their study, which used a sophisticated climate
modelling system developed by Environment Canada .
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