Planting forests may cool the planet more than thought

[FfFfFfFF 58,371]

Planting trees and replenishing forests are among the simplest and most appealing natural climate solutions, but the impact of trees on atmospheric temperature is more complex than meets the eye. Scientists question whether reforesting midlatitude locations such as North America or Europe could make the planet hotter.

Forests absorb large amounts of solar radiation as a result of having a low albedo, which is the measure of a surface's ability to reflect sunlight. In temperate climates, the concern is that the sun's trapped heat could counteract any cooling effect forests would provide by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

"The main thing is that nobody has known whether planting trees at midlatitudes is good or bad because of the albedo problem," said author Amilcare Porporato, Princeton's Thomas J. Wu.  "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."

Porporato and Yin previously reported that climate models underestimate the cooling effect of the daily cloud cycle. They also reported that climate change could result in increased daily cloud coverage in arid regions such as the American Southwest that are currently ideal for solar power production.

Source - https://phys.org/news/2021-08-forests-cool-planet-thought.html 

[high culture 2,362]

I always wondered if deforestation was doing more harm than fossil fuels

[Economy 52,909]

The albeto effect is one of the reasons why massive solar pannel farms in some regions are questioned to actually potentially make heat trapping effects worse than the CO2 emissions it prevents

 

I read how in some African Nations in Sub Sahara desert as well as some parts of the Middle East in Countries like Saudi Arabia the white or light yellow sand deflects a lot of sunlight back into space (like ice in the poles do)... solar panels being dark absorb a lot of heat... since their efficiency is still quite low, most of the sunlight is not absorbed as energy on the pannels but rather as heat on the surfaces of the pannels

 

Trees on a net cooling vs heating effect may face a simmilar situation in specific regions so im not surprised by this

 

However yeah i agree generally across the board its a good idea on the planet as a whole. Actually Just Trudeau spoke as well some time ago how planting Billions of trees would be a good way to help the Co2 Balance

[Guest]

the way our world will literally receive a make over that either is completely green and environtmentally friendly or total chaos , war, anarchy and apocalypse it could be from a bad c-movie from the 70s ... it feels like the final boss we need to defeat before we can find paradise and peace

[PartySick 172,997]

So load up the tree-seed buckshot and let's get to work. What are we waiting for?

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, PartySick said:

So load up the tree-seed buckshot and let's get to work. What are we waiting for?

I’m ready!