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Posted on 12/06/2005 7:28:26 AM PST by DaveLoneRanger
LIVERMORE, Calif. — Planting trees across the United States and Europe to absorb some of the carbon dioxide emitted by the burning of fossil fuels may just outweigh the positive effects of sequestering that CO².
In theory, growing a forest may sound like a good idea to fight global warming, but in temperate regions, such as the United States, those trees also would soak up sunlight, causing the earth’s surface to warm regionally by up to 8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Forests affect climate in three different ways: they absorb the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and help to keep the planet cool; they evaporate water to the atmosphere, which also helps keep the planet cool; and they are dark and absorb a lot of sunlight, warming the Earth.
Using climate models, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology have found that forests in the mid-latitude regions of the Earth present a more complicated picture. Trees in these areas tend to warm the Earth in the long run.
The darkness of these forests absorbs abundant sunlight, warming the land. While the darkness of the forest lasts forever, the effect of the forest sequestering carbon dioxide slows down over time as the atmosphere exchanges CO² with the ocean.
The conclusion: Planting a forest in the United States could cool the Earth for a few decades, but would lead to planetary warming in the long term. These are the results of a study that will be presented at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7, at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco.
“On time scales longer than a few centuries, the net effect will actually be warming in these regions,” said Govindasamy Bala of the Livermore team. “We thought planting trees across the northern hemisphere would help curb global warming by the CO² absorption but what we found was a different story.”
The authors discovered that a global replacement of current vegetation by trees would lead to a global warming of 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Global replacement with grassland led to cooling of about 0.7°F.
The researchers also found that planting trees between 30 and 50 degrees latitude worldwide saw the global mean surface air temperature increase by 0.7°F. Regional warming in North America and Eurasia was as high as 8°F. In earlier studies, planting trees in the boreal forest regions (found mostly in the upper half of the Northern Hemisphere) caused a warming of surface temperatures.
“Although it was previously known that trees could have an overall warming effect in the boreal forests (north of 50 degrees), this is the first study to show that temperate forests could lead to net global warming,” said Livermore’s Seran Gibbard, lead author of the study.
The story is different for the tropical forests. In tropical regions, forests help keep the Earth cool by not only absorbing carbon dioxide, but by evaporating plenty of water as well.
“Should we give carbon credit to the planting of forests? Probably not for countries in mid and high latitudes,” Bala said. “But the tropical forests present a win-win because they cool the planet by evaporative cooling and the uptake of carbon.”
Co-author Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution warned that proposals to grow more forests to cool the planet should be greeted with caution.
“I like forests. They provide good habitats for plants and animals, and tropical forest are good for climate, so we should be particularly careful to preserve them,” he said. “But in terms of climate change, we should focus our efforts on things that can really make a difference, like energy efficiency and developing new sources of clean energy.”
The research, also authored by Thomas Phillips and Michael Wickett of Lawrence Livermore, will appear online in the Dec. 8 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Founded in 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has a mission to ensure national security and apply science and technology to the important issues of our time. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
The loonies just keep coming out of the forests...the dumbing-down of America has been quite sucsessful.
I thought I read an article here a few years ago that natural GRASSLANDS were actually better than the planting of new forests...to lazy to search.
Will these people please make up their minds
Global warming can only be stopped when Haliburton has the mineral rights to the sun and Cheney becomes omnipotent planetary ruler extraordinaire and can finally order the Chinese to clean up their unbridled air pollution....
Can science get any more f***ed then these enviros make it? What a load of BS.
Fits in perfectly with the theory that EVERYTHING causes global warming.
"We don't know what we're talking about. Science confuses us. Maybe it's getting warmer. Maybe it's getting colder. We haven't got a clue. But ... keep those grants comin'!!"
I could use some global warming about now. It's been below 10 degrees for two days.
We must therefore eliminate forests to eliminate oxygen and ban breathing immediately. Otherwise we'll all die.
Big Yellow Taxi
Don’t it always seem to go
But you don't know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
They took all the trees and put ’em in a tree museum
And they charged all the people a dollar and a half just to see ’em
AND everything that happens is caused by global warming. No way you can win with these theories is there?
I have this year's and next year's firewood cut and stacked. Just doing my part.
Now the environmentalists have taking insanity to a whole new level.
lol these fruit cakes can't make up their mind what lie they want to tell next.
Let me see if I have it right so far:
They can't admit that there may be something that would stop or eleminate Global warming other than the stopping of civilization, of course the greenies and other idiots can continue to live the good life but the rest of us MUST move back into caves and start eating grass and berries.
"Founded in 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has a mission to ensure national security and apply science and technology to the important issues of our time. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration."
Why..oh why..do we continue to hand over ANYTHING to do with our National Security or Nuclear Security to lefty professors at California Universities? Didn't Los Alamos teach us anything? (rolling eyes)
What's the alternative route for the sunlight? It gets absorbed by something else or reflected. If trees can grow somewhere then grasses or weeds can grow there...both green as trees and both absorbing. This group don't seem too bright.
Climate changes. In the millenia about which we have any information the only thing that our climate has never, ever, done... is to remain static for even a moment in time.
If mankind is having any effect on it at all, perhaps we should first decide whether or not it is a beneficial effect.
Wonder why some of the usual suspects don't start whining about how these bozos are destroying science.
SERVE LEFT, NO, SWERVE RIGHT, SLAM ON THE BRAKES. LISTEN TO ME I KNOW WHAT TO DO!
Sorry, but I'm not going to buckle under. Every time I put more fruits and veggies in my diet, my internal gas levels go up significantly.
Based on my personal experience, living as an omnivore is better for the atmosphere (and me): more balanced diet, with less gas...a winning combination!
Apparently, there have never been any actual forests cut down (or grown, for that matter) to test this lame hypothesis.....
I think the fact that trees are not found at the north and south pole, prove that trees do in fact heat the earth.
To the environmentalists of the world I reply...."Great idea, you go first....."
Yes, everytime Al Gore goes to South America to give a speech, they could down huge patches of forests so he can safely view the river and give speeches.
Grassland takes carbon from the air and leaves a fair amount in the soil in the form of humic and fulvic acids etc. up to a point where the soil has reached its capacity. Plowing up pasture and exposing the bare soil to sun and weather releases carbon.
A fellow in Australia did the math and claims credibly that the amount of carbon released by turning grasslands to bare field cropland is more than the carbon released by burining fossil fuels.
The political left is utterly insane.
The US and Europe have the wealth and the land to plant their own trees and avoid having to buy "pollution credits" from other countries. That's what this is about - money.
"I think the fact that trees are not found at the north and south pole, prove that trees do in fact heat the earth"
*Giggle*
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This is an argument for the thinning of forests, which really does need to happen. Of course, the enviroweanies don’t like that. |
Ok. So flock them so they reflect sunlight? :)
Actually tis is a reasonably good article which illustrates that climate is complex with many variables which can offset one another. This makes it extremely difficult to model. As a result, we have to be very skeptical of computer models at this stage in our knowledge about such things.
I suspect the pinheads must be aiming for a Nobel Prize or something...
Cripes, I bet the stoopid couch potatoes don't even know how to read a compass...
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting sick and tired of seeing taxpayer money wasted on nonproductive "research" like this. IMHO, we'd be better off if these "scientists" got off their lazy butts and went out to plant more trees on public lands. It doesn't much matter what kind, just so long as they're suitable for the climate of whatever region of our nation they're in. Oaks, Maples, Spruce, dogwoods, redwoods, pine, hickory, walnuts, birch, willows, cherry ... whatever... the more the better...
Trees
Joyce Kilmer. 1886 ~ 1918I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
You are wrong. Global warming can only be stopped when Leftists and Democrats totally control all branches of the US federal government. Let's just cut to the chase of what they are really saying.
"they could down huge patches of forests so he can safely view the river and give speeches."
EARTH FIRST!!! (we can log the other planets later)
I don't think so.
Livermore Labs is part of the University of California at Berkeley. Home of the Liberal whackos.
These idiots are saying this does this, and that does that, as if their MODEL were reality. HELLO!
They won't be happy until all life on Earth is replaced by dry dust, and then the Sun will still expand and evaporate the planet!
I've heard that America now has more forests than South America or Africa, but I haven't seen any hard-core data.
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