The World Lost an Oklahoma-Sized Area of Forest In 2013, Satellite Data Show

merbs writes Oklahoma spans an area in the American South that stretches across almost 70,000 square miles. That's almost exactly the same area of global forest cover that was lost in a single year. High resolution maps from Global Forest Watch, tapping new data from a partnership between the University of Maryland and Google, show that 18 million hectares (69,500 square miles) of tree cover were lost from wildfires, deforestation, and development the year before last. The maps were created by synthesizing 400,000 satellite images collected by NASA's Landsat mission.

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Re:What the fuck sort of unit..

[ShanghaiBill]

I've heard it claimed (having difficulty finding authoritative sources) that this is consequences of numerous artificial lakes changing the climate and that originally there were fewer trees.

Before humans arrived in North America, much of the great plains was covered by scrub and mixed trees and grassland, similar to the African savanna. Latter, the native America tribes regularly burned off the vegetation, wiping out many of the trees, and establishing the tall grass prairie. This created grazing land for bison and pronghorns, but could only be maintained with regular intentional burning. So the increase in trees in modern Oklahoma, is really just a return to the "natural" state.