Woodlands Help to Cool The Planet

We all know that trees are vital to our survival; trees are the biggest plants on this planet and give us oxygen. Trees absorb carbon from the air and in return produce oxygen. Trees also provide other vital rolls such as they stabilise the soil and give homes and shelter to some of the world's wildlife. But is that all?

New studies have found that forested areas in tropical climates are actually helping to cool the atmosphere. Studies have shown that clouds tend to form more frequently over forested areas rather than urban areas. Forested areas absorb a lot of the suns radiation due to the fact they can only reflect small amounts of sunlight. Around 2.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide is absorbed by the world's forests every year.

As the clouds form more frequently over these forested areas the cooling effect is due to as the clouds then reflect more of the suns radiation away from the planet. The cooling effect is only thought to be as much as 1 degree Celsius.

Some studies have shown that forested areas in cooler climates such as Europe could have a warming effect rather than the cooling effect of tropical forested areas. Forested areas create a canopy over the ground and only allow small amounts of sunlight to be reflected. Forested areas in cooler climates would then prevent the ground snow reflecting large amounts of sunlight back into the sky.

The later studies however do not seem to be taking the clouds that form over the forested areas into consideration and the benefits that clouds have. Just like Snow or ice clouds have a high albedo, albedo is unitless quantity that indicates how well a surface reflects solar energy.