It is a fact that forests cover approximately 30% of the land surface of our planet. It’s a good thing because trees can help reduce the carbon from the air and release oxygen that helps us all to live. According to data, forests have removed about 2 billion metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year since 2000. It helps slow climate change and preserves the earth. Read on to know more about how forests help reduce global warming in more ways than one.
The Challenge
The biggest
challenge planet earth faces concerning preserving and promoting forests is
deforestation. Over the last 8,000, humans have removed about half of the
forests from the earth to make room for agriculture and urbanization. When
trees are cut down or burned, it releases carbon dioxide stored in the trees.
How Can
Forests Help?
According to a
recent study, tropical forests can help cool the average global temperature by
over 1 degree Celsius. This is largely due to forests’ capacity to capture and
store atmospheric carbon (SN: 11/18/21). One-third of the tropical cooling
effect also comes from many other processes like releasing vapors and aerosols.
When trees
release water vapors via pores in their leaves, it is called evapotranspiration.
It cools the trees and their surroundings the same way sweating does for us.
Uneven forest canopies also have a cooling effect by providing an undulating
surface that can bump hot and overpass fronts of air upward and away. Also, generate
aerosols which can lower temperatures by seeding clouds and reflecting
sunlight.
Tree leaves also
absorb more sunlight than other types of land cover like bare grounds or even
fields. Forests can help reduce the surface albedo of earth, which means that
earth would reflect less incoming sunlight into space. This effect is
specifically pronounced in mountainous or dry regions or at higher latitudes where
slow-growing coniferous trees with dark leaves cover light-colored ground, or there
is snow that would otherwise reflect sunlight.
Tropical forests
are climate coolers, and the proof of that is that trees in tropical forests grow
faster and transpire massive amounts of water that form clouds. It further
helps cool the climate.
Healthy forests
also provide many other benefits, like they offer clean water and being a
perfect habitat for plants and animals that cannot live anywhere else.
The Inkling
The first clue
that plants can suck carbon dioxide from the air was in the 1780s when Jean
Senebier, a Swiss pastor, grew plants under different experimental conditions
and suggested that plants decompose CO2 from the air and incorporate the carbon.
After some time, his idea was corroborated by discoveries about the mechanisms
of photosynthesis.
The Simple
Answer
Now that you
know forests help reduce global warming in more ways than one, you should plant
a tree or add plants to your home. You can also help propagate the reversal of
deforestation by supporting afforestation, reforestation, and the natural
regeneration of forest ecosystems.
Sources:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/forest-trees-reduce-global-warming-climate-cooling-carbon
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00122-z
https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/forests-and-climate-change