Astounding ignorance. Trees make good firewood or wood pulp.
"A suprise to me."
Another thing people are surprised to hear, and still don't believe, is that trees are a source of pollution.
Reagan got bashed and still gets bashed for pointing this out.
But it's true.
Several things come to mind. First, the water run-off from large forests wouldn't be especially great, because the water is held in the undergrowth. While there isn't great run-off, there is a bountiful amount of animal and plant life supported by the water in these eco systems.
On the one hand the study says that trees don't create more rain, but then it also notes that there is greater evaporation from the forests. This makes one wonder if the people running the study understand where rain comes from.
Water attracts trees, not the other way around. Some people just don't think logically.
Since most trees root systems are on the top 3-6 inches of the ground this study proves that some people get far to much time and gelt to spew their ignorance. In the rain forests of South America, nearly the whole eco system is above ground.
Trees provide the canopy to cool the air by shade and evaporation..causing all that water to go into the air and return as rain..maybe not in that area, but it comes down. The Sahara desert once had forests. After they became extinct the desert was the result.
The biggest polluter on earth is forest fire. Forest fire releases carbon, not only from the fire itself but the ground. And it continues to release that element for years untill a new forest grows. Fire also releases Mercury as well as other elements collected over the years on the ground. So lets get Bruce "The Rabbit" Babbit to get out on another photo op of him with a drip can lighting up a "controlled" burn...the ignorant idiot!
And water vapor is a greenhouse gas much more powerful than CO2.
I think the article is pretty strange, myself, but it seems like the qualifier is "plantation trees," which means one type of tree, rather than a natural forest. Like the white pine plantations in your home state.
Anyway, before I make up my mind I'd need to see more on this.
Although I live in the DC suburbs, the back half of our lot is covered in mature hardwoods with typical understory which we don't mess with. We even let fallen trees stay where they fall. Behind our lot is another three acres in similar condition, and the neighborhoon on the other side also lets their trees grow.
The rest of the yards in our own neighborhood are typical suburban lawns.
Our back yard stays plenty cool in the summer, and I can see that rain runoff concentrates in the sward between the trees and our house. Rain in the woods just soaks in.
I'll trust my own eyes over a newspaper article any day.
I have no idea how this affects rainfall, my guess is that it's too complicated.
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