A new study says that
planting more trees in tropical rainforests could help slow global warming worldwide.The Our study shows that tropical forests are very eneficial to control the climate. Forests affect climate in three different ways: they absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and help to keep the planet cool; they evaporate water to the atmosphere and increase cloudiness, which also helps keep the planet cool; and they are dark and absorb a lot of sunlight, warming the Earth. Climate change mitigation strategies that promote planting trees have taken only the first effect into account.
The study also concludes that by the year 2100, forests in mid and high latitudes will make some places up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than would have occurred if the forests did not exist.The darkening of the surface by new forest canopies in the high latitude regions allows absorption of more sunlight that helps to warm the surface. In fact, planting more trees in high latitudes could be counterproductive from a climate perspective. The study finds little or no climate benefit when trees are planted in temperate region.
Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-twentieth century and its projected continuation.Increasing global temperature will cause sea level to rise, and is expected to increase the intensity of extreme weather events and to change the amount and pattern of precipitation. Other effects of global warming include changes in agricultural yields, trade routes, glacier retreat, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors.
Remaining scientific uncertainties include the amount of warming expected in the future, and how warming and related changes will vary from region to region around the globe. Most national governments have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but there is ongoing political and public debate worldwide regarding what, if any, action should be taken to reduce or reverse future warming or to adapt to its expected consequences.
The Earth's climate changes in response to external forcing, including variations in its orbit around the Sun (orbital forcing), volcanic eruptions, and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. The detailed causes of the recent warming remain an active field of research, but the scientific consensus is that the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases due to human activity caused most of the warming observed since the start of the industrial era. This attribution is clearest for the most recent 50 years Some other hypotheses departing from the consensus view have been suggested to explain the temperature increase. One such hypothesis proposes that warming may be the result of variations in solar activity.
Over the past several years, increased awareness of the scientific findings surrounding global warming has resulted in political and economic debate. Poor regions, particularly Africa, appear at greatest risk from the suggested effects of global warming, while their actual emissions have been small compared to the developed world. At the same time, developing country exemptions from provisions of the Kyoto Protocol have been criticized by the United States and Australia, and have been used as part of the rationale for continued non-ratification by the U.S. In the Western world, the idea of human influence on climate has gained wider acceptance in Europe than in the United States.
