How does planting trees combat global warming

Others say this problem is overblown. She points out that the polar regions are warming faster than the rest of the planet, so much of the snow may melt in the coming decades — in which case planting trees will not make the ground that much darker. The other thing trees do is emit volatile chemicals into the air. These chemicals stick together to form tiny floating particles called aerosols , which have complicated effects.

For example, the aerosols create a faint haze. This scatters sunlight back into space, cooling the planet. This creates more low cloud , or thicker low cloud, which also bounces sunlight back to space. Planting trees can play a part in reducing carbon in the atmosphere — but it cannot reverse global warming on its own Credit: Getty Images.

In Unger calculated that, by chopping down forests from to the s and thus preventing them emitting volatiles, we have created a cooling effect that slightly offset the warming from greenhouse gas emissions. This includes restoring wetlands and other ecosystems, and minimising emissions from farmland, but the biggest contributors by far were preserving existing forests and reforesting degraded areas. The team estimated that the natural climate solutions could lock up the equivalent of That is a little over half our annual emissions, but they emphasise that many of the strategies they studied would not be cost-effective: a more plausible figure would be billion tonnes of CO2 per year.

For Law, it is one of the best estimates published to date. When trees are cut down, it is important that the carbon they contain is not released again into the atmosphere Credit: Getty Images. They estimated that reforestation could remove three billion to 18 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. These are significant numbers. Uncertainties do remain, however. However, there are also surprise benefits of planting trees.

For instance, a study suggested that large-scale tree planting in dry tropical regions would cause a shift in weather patterns, leading to more rainfall on land — enabling more plant growth and therefore more carbon storage. Also, planting trees is not just about stopping climate change. In order to create your account we need you to provide your email address. You can check out our Privacy Policy to see how we safeguard and use the information you provide us with.

If your Facebook account does not have an attached e-mail address, you'll need to add that before you can sign up. Please contact us at contact globalcitizen. Tree-planting has become a cornerstone of many environmental campaigns in recent years. The call to plant trees is everywhere, seen as a simple and effective way to help reduce the impact of carbon emissions and restore natural ecosystems.

That followed a similar campaign aiming to plant 1 trillion trees by which was kicked off in by nature nonprofits including WWF. Redditors have even got in on the act when in , when they created a flood of memes encouraging prominent YouTuber Mr Beast to plant 20 million trees to celebrate hitting 20 million subscribers.

Mr Beast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, accepted the challenge, started a fundraiser, and teamed up with the tree conservation charity the Arbour Day Foundation to help smash the target. But why is there such a big emphasis on tree-planting to curb the climate crisis? This will help enrich wildlife and biodiversity while reducing water pollution, soil degradation , and plagues.

Nonetheless, there are other studies that question the efficiency of trees and bring up some concerns about the true efficiency in cap and trade systems. A study from the University of California, Davis, discovered grasslands and rangelands are better and more resilient carbon sinkers than forest trees in California.

As a result, when they burn, trees release carbon back to the atmosphere, while the carbon fixed by grasslands which also absorb a lot of carbon tends to stay in the roots and soils. This suggests grasslands are less vulnerable to the increasingly likely to happen weather events, droughts and fires and, therefore, more adaptive to climate change then trees.

This means conserving grasslands and promoting rangeland practices that contribute to carbon absorption is very important to meet the reduction targets of GHG emissions. Moreover, other studies show forests lead to a higher albedo effect the number of sun rays directly reflected back to space without heating the ground compared to arable land.

It is, therefore, crucial to accurately calculate depending on the location or the type of land among other variables the net effect of decreased albedo and carbon storage to figure out whether planting trees truly is the best use for soils.

If we consider nutrient-rich and balanced soils have a great carbon absorption potential, deciding whether to prioritize enriching these soils or planting trees can become a hard choice.

Indeed, more questions need to be asked before saying out loud and with clear confidence that planting trees all over is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best strategy to fight climate change. How long will planting trees take before changing the levels of co2 in the atmosphere?

Can savannas and grasslands support huge increases in tree cover or will it affect the resilience of ecosystems and perhaps even their ability to function as effectively regarding carbon sequestration? How to conciliate the need to plant more trees with the increasingly higher demand for food production? It is important to consider these questions before speaking about planting trees on a large scale as a good strategy to tackle climate change and reduce GHG concentrations.

For instance, one should consider that trees sink carbon as they grow and not right after being planted. Planting single types of species is also dangerous for the natural balance and damaging for the health of soils. In the end, more studies with better satellite observations and modeling that takes climate connectivity and the current resilience of certain ecosystems into consideration are needed — Saatchi suggests. They will allow a better understanding of which — if any, as enriching grasslands and arable soils can turn out to be better solutions — regions global forest reforestation efforts should be put.

Meanwhile, reducing emissions and restore original forest covers are crucial climate change mitigation strategies. Photo by Aditya Vyas on Unsplash.

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See all. Prof Simon Lewis, at University College London, said the carbon already in the land before tree planting was not accounted for and that it takes hundreds of years to achieve maximum storage. He pointed to a scenario from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 1.

Other scientists said avoiding monoculture plantation forests and respecting local and indigenous people were crucial to ensuring reforestation succeeds in cutting carbon and boosting wildlife. Visit the Crowther Lab website for a tool that enables users to look at particular places and identify the areas for restoration and which tree species are native there.

This article is more than 2 years old. Redwood trees in Guerneville, California. Let nature heal climate and biodiversity crises, say campaigners. Read more. Show There are about 3tn trees on the planet and they play a significant role in producing the oxygen we all breathe.