Careful Where You Put That Tree

Ant writes "Wired News is reporting that according to Stanford University's atmospheric scientist Ken Caldeira, forests in the wrong location can actually make the Earth hotter. From the article: 'Plants absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, so scientists and policy makers have long assumed new forest growth helps combat global warming. At an American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco earlier this month, however, Caldeira rolled out a provocative new finding: Trees may be good at capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but their dark leaves are also very efficient at soaking up sunlight, which is later released as heat. At certain latitudes, the net effect of these two processes is warming, rather than cooling.'"

Comments

Solution:

[Poromenos1]

Plant them in antarctica! That's where all the problem is, and it gets way too little sun. Problem solved!

I'm so torn

[mcgroarty]

This past week, the New York Times reported on an article in Nature that explained how industrial and automobile pollutants may turn out to have a cooling impact, owing to long-standing misestimation of their ability to deflect the sun's heat.

See, here's where I'm torn: I happen to like global warming. It would be good for farming and would make a greater percentage of the civilized world comfortable for our aging population. But the part where I'm torn is that the articles I'm reading this week tell me that to get my wish, I do precisely what the environmentalists have been urging since the 80s. Drive less and plant more trees, but this time in support of global warming!

Re:I'm so torn

[Quarters]

"c) Even small increases in temperature can cause significant changes in the weather. One word that sums this up well: Katrina."

Climatologists have said that at the current rate of global warming a net change in hurricane severity is still quite a ways off.

Katrina was bad only because of where it hit. Any other category 3 would've done the same thing to the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was a category 4 and tore up large chunks of Florida. Not only would Andrew have done to New Orleans what Katrina did, it probably would've been worse, since Katrina was only a category 3 when it hit land for the second time (it was only a category 1 when it hit Florida).

The strongest recorded storm at the time of landfall between 1992 and 2005 was a category 4 (Andrew), not a category 3 (Katrina). Storm severity was worse 13 years ago, when the globe was marginally cooler. Katrina was not a direct result of global warming, it was just an average storm that hit a very ill prepared area.

right but..

[Danzigism]

Of course, but cutting down trees certainly won't save the environment either.. Trees do not deplete our ozone.. they simply freshen the air, and clear up part of the atmosphere where smog, and other air pollution rests..

a big part of their argument is that the smog acts almost as if its sunblock.. ultimately making the temperature on earth cooler.. but you can't honestly say, that we need to pollute more, just so we can have our sunblock on ;-) we need to be thinking LONGTERM which is the most important factor.. yes, if we slowly decrease our use of gas-guzzlin' bitches, it will get hotter on earth.. if we plant trees, it will clean up the polluted air which acts as our sunblock, making the earth much hotter.. but hey, we better start now, because it'll be twice as hot, if we wait too long..

Re:Don't worry, be happy!

[toupsie]

What the devil are you talking about? The average temperature is -63 C with the highest temperature being 20 C. I'd hardly say Mars is currently suffering from Global Warming. If you're going to make a stupid post, at least get your facts right. Sheeesh

Since it is Christmas, I shall be kind to such a response. Mars is experiencing Global Warming.

So is NASA lying? Or don't you believe in their facts?