Clark researchers discover some US forests add to global warming
CLARK UNIVERSITY
WORCESTER, Mass. — New research by Christopher A. Williams, an environmental scientist and professor in Clark University‘s Graduate School of Geography, reveals that deforestation in the U.S. does not always cause planetary warming, as is commonly assumed; instead, in some places, it actually cools the planet. A peer-reviewed study by Williams and his team, “Climate Impacts of U.S. Forest Loss Span Net Warming to Net Cooling,” published today (Feb. 12) in Science Advances. The team’s discovery has important implications for policy and management efforts that are turning to forests to mitigate climate change.
It is well established that forests soak up carbon dioxide from the air and store it in wood and soils, slowing the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere; however, that is not their only effect on climate. Forests also tend to be darker than other surfaces, said Professor Williams, causing them to absorb more sunlight and retain heat, a process known as “the albedo effect.”
“We found that in some parts of the country like the Intermountain West, more forest actually leads to a hotter planet when we consider the full climate impacts from both carbon and albedo effects,” said Professor Williams. It is important to consider the albedo effect of forests alongside their well-known carbon storage when aiming to cool the planet, he adds.
The research was funded by two grants from NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System. Williams and his research team — comprising data scientist Huan Gu, Ph.D. from The Climate Corporation and Tong Jiao, Ph.D. — found that for approximately one quarter of the country, forest loss causes a persistent net cooling because the albedo effect outweighs the carbon effect. They also discovered that loss of forests east of the Mississippi River and in Pacific Coast states caused planetary warming, while forest loss in the Intermountain and Rocky Mountain West tended to lead to a net cooling.
According to Professor Williams, scientists have known for some time that expanding forest cover cannot be assumed to cool the planet or to mitigate global warming. However, this has not always been appreciated broadly.
“If we fail to consider both the carbon and the albedo effects, large-scale tree-planting initiatives, such as Canada’s 2Billion Trees Initiative and The Nature Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Trees campaign, could end up placing trees in locations that are counterproductive for cooling the climate system,” said Professor Williams.
“It is all about putting the right trees in the right place,” said Williams, “and studies like ours can help identify where the potential for cooling is greatest.”
Every year, approximately one million acres of forest are being converted to non-forest areas across the lower 48 states of the U.S.; this is largely due to suburban and exurban expansion and development. Professor Williams’ team found that the net climate impact of a full 15 years of forest losses amounts to about 17% of a single year of U.S. fossil fuel emissions.
Williams’ research team used state-of-the-art satellite remote sensing to bring a detailed, observational perspective to examine this problem that had previously been assessed mostly with computer models. The three researchers pinpointed the locations of forest loss and identified what those sites became — urban, agricultural, grassland, shrubland, pasture, or something else. They then quantified how much forest biomass carbon was released to the atmosphere, and how much additional sunlight was reflected out to space. By comparing these two effects they measured the net impact of deforestation on the climate system.
The new datasets and methods used in Professor Williams’ study show that the tools are available to take the albedo effect into account. The Clark team hopes to generate actionable datasets to share with land managers and policymakers worldwide within the next one or two years, to help ensure that their tree-planting efforts focus on the right places and have the intended effects.
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Founded in 1887, Clark University is a liberal arts-based research university that prepares its students to meet tomorrow’s most daunting challenges and embrace its greatest opportunities. Through 33 undergraduate majors, more than 30 advanced degree programs, and nationally recognized community partnerships, Clark fuses rigorous scholarship with authentic world and workplace experiences that empower our learning community to pursue lives and careers of meaning and consequence. Clark’s academic departments and institutes develop solutions to complex global problems across the disciplines.
http://www.clarku.edu
More information, including a copy of the paper, can be found online at the Science Advances press package at http://www.eurekalert.org/jrnls/sciadvances/.
For more about Professor Williams’ research, publications, and appointments, visit these links:
Nature turns to Professor Williams for expertise on forests, climate change (2019)
Natural Climate Solutions reduce global warming (2018)
Geography professor selected for top-level carbon research program’s science leadership group (2017)
Study: Ecosystems slow the rate of rising CO2 concentration (2016)
Researchers: Global warming leads to drier air, stressed plants (2016)
Clark geographer in Australia to study climate change, drought and the death of trees (2016)
Clark geographer awarded NASA grants to study carbon release, uptake in U.S. forests (2014)
New Clark study on clearcuts shows surprising trends in carbon, water (2013)
I read about this in Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” back in the early’80’s.
OCEANS PRODUCE MORE O2 THAN TREES AND PLANTS. Trees may be too greedy – CO2 Matters Too – Trees may be taking more than their fair CO2 share? Scientists discover another extinct tree – a conifer – in Louisiana – claim man could be responsible since he caused the American Elm and American Chestnut to go extinct.
“Williams’ research team used state-of-the-art satellite remote sensing to bring a detailed, observational perspective to examine this problem that had previously been assessed mostly with computer models.”
After which it, appears they modeled the impact on global temperature assuming the widely advertised CO2 control knob was just as effective in reality as in the horribly deficient climate models. Calling any academic work “research” that relies primarily on unvalidated models is a misuse of the term. This is purely theorizing. Until it is turned into real research with observational evidence of the claimed outcomes it is as likely to be accurate as a fortune tellers prophecies.
While these newly planted trees grow and bind CO2 then they breathe and they do so as long as it is alive, it does not stop breathing even though it is grown, as is the case with all creatures. This breath is what goes on in the carbon cycle and is the basis for new biomass to grow, now we disregard physical and chemical mechanisms that also release and bind carbon. Both Biological physical and chemical mechanisms vary in dynamics with temperature.
So CO2 comes from the Earth via the breathing of all organisms to the atmosphere. The volume of the carbon cycle increases as the volume of the living biomass increases, the more that breathes the more the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere grows. This demonization of CO2 belongs nowhere, scientists have not yet shown whether or how much CO2 affects the temperature
About 15 years ago planting trees was seen as a big deal to save the planet. Then someone noted that the dark trunks of trees warmed even in the winter – as do dark fence posts. Hold your hand against one, if you want proof. Thus, the push for millions of new (subsidized) trees faded.
Now I note that Justin Trudeau wants Canada to plant 2 billion trees to add to the 318 billion there now:
http://greenblizzard.com/2015/09/30/how-many-trees-in-the-canada/
That will help. – winking smiley face – Poe’s Law
This PanicGreen thing is getting redundant.
It’s beyond stupid
Coincidentally, that is also a description of Justin Trudeau
Has Professor Williams and scientists Huan Gu, Ph.D. from The Climate Corporation and Tong Jiao, Ph.D. spent any time in a forest?
Maybe they should!
Exactly! All trees should be planted in Botswana using Botswana labor and prices while claiming carbon credits in US dollars.
Formatting, bolding and italics are mine to highlight their ‘words’ and ‘phrases’.
State of the art satellite remote sensing…
They’ve just changed the form of the models used to confirm their gross assumptions.
It’s called Confirmation Bias.
Their goal, before finishing their research is to influence land managers and politicians… That tells everything right there.
One million acres… Approximately 1,562 square miles or 4,047 square kilometers.
That’s a square chunk of land approximately 39.5 miles per side or 64 kilometers per side.
And that is before their error bounds for “state-of-the-art satellite remote sensing” are defined and presented.
I have to assume they are including trees felled for Drax in their totals.
I also assume that their ability to differentiate between crops and woodlands to be questionable. Which begs how many acres are assumed “deforested” that were not forested to begin with.
What sort of scientist says something as moronically stupid as that.
Its a LOCAL effect, does not make “the planet” do anything.
I think their use of the albedo effect here may be not all it is cracked up to be. Plants naturally have a lower albedo – they have been designed by evolution to absorb as much light of particular wavelengths as possible in order to feed themselves. The light they absorb is converted into sugars and used by the plant’s metabolism to turn that sugar into tree. The process of making that sugar is quite endothermic which is a cooling effect.
They are confusing the conventional albedo effect on inert materials with conversion to sensible heat, butlike most biological processes, this is a chemical intervention and actually leads to localized cooling. I think someone is just trying to find a means to demonize the greening of the planet.
How much this paywalled fudge highlights the opportunity for knowledgeable ecologists and natural science experts to enhance the debate on physical global changes.
40% of forests globally gone by humans to agriculture grazing and deserted. Plainly speaking from what I can see, remove a forest, rainfall decline, increase surface run off, dryer in summer, frosts, higher winds, baking heat. Cut a forest down where a creek flows, that creek ecology collapses too.
A forest creates its own climate as much as is position in the world. Forests are primary in the water cycle.
The history of the cedars of Lebanon are a warning bell, it’s story is chilling ….
A forest is stable and a self repairing ecology, it is filled with life, take it away …
Personally I prefer earth to mars.
I agree with that Recent CO2 fertilisation also greens semi desert and restores water cycle. The real tragedy of AGW hysteria is that it interferes with sensible ecological stewardship so bioethanol from corn and replacing equatorial forest with palmoil does huge damage andraises food prices
The big takeaway from this type of abject nonsense is that stupid and crazy is a very unfortunate admixture of traits.
They are completely ignoring the large fraction of absorbed sunlight that is used by plants in photosynthesis to fuel the increased growth due to increased availability of CO2. Foliage in colder climates tend to be darker to facilitate this process. In the tropics ,warmed leaves transpire much more water, leading to increased evaporative cooling. My experience in the tropics is that trees and foliage definitely cause cooling of the surrounding atmosphere. The temperature is always lower inside a forest than outside.
Except at night.
Much of the energy absorbed goes into making sugar not heat. Do pine needles and leaves get as hot as black metal or a stone surface? I don’t think so. Did he actually measure air temperatures or is he just theorizing?
They measure albedo from satellite imagery and used that in the straight radiative equations. They treated it like a green rock instead of living beings.
The really weird thing is that they seem to be unaware that the main reason that forests cool the local climate is their transpiration of water to the atmosphere.
How can ALL these “educated idjets” fail a 4th grade science test that shows that ALL green plants on Earth, that operate the photosynthesis cycle that supports(food supply) ALL life on planet Earth, use CO2 in that process, and without that CO2, there is NO photosynthesis, NO food cycle, and NO animal life on Earth?