Are the effects of global warming on the rainforest irreversible?

A new study in the magazine “Science” shows that the climate change is significantly affecting the length of the rainforests dry season.

Current climate change and global warming has already changed up to 20% of the world’s rainforests natural composition. In the worst case scenario, 85% of the world’s rainforests could be affected.

The “normal” rainy season is followed by a period of dry weather, and as the length of the dry season is increasing more and more trees are dying.

Rainforests absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while growing but this is released back into the atmosphere when the trees die and rot.

The lengthy dry season of 2005 caused the death of huge number of trees releasing over 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. By 2100, with a rise of just 1ºC to 2ºC the Amazon forest would lose 20% to 40% of its entire surface area, with a rise of 4ºC the remaining living rainforest would be the equivalent of just 15% of its current size. A temperature rise of 2ºC to 6ºC during the dry season would result in a loss of up to 18% of the rainforest!

Climate change is a major worldwide concern and tropical rainforests are a key player in controlling or at least attenuating it. The Amazon rainforest will require 50 years to recover from the effects of the 2005 dry season.

Loss of the rainforest is primarily due to deforestation for agriculture – grazing pastures and crops .

Unfortunately the problem of climate change is a vicious circle as more and more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere the rainforest endures longer and harsher dry seasons which kill more trees and those rotting trees release even more carbon dioxide.

The answer, reduction in deforestation of Natural Rainforests which act as a carbon sink, sustainable forestry and a reduction in emissions of green house gases from industry, transport and agriculture.

Easier said than done and global initiatives are required.

Carbon Sequestration

CO2 is one of the primary greenhouse gases contributing to global warming. Trees not only remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but they also act as "global air conditioners" and help to combat this unwelcome effect.


In 2002, the Home Depot Foundation partnered with Reforest The Tropics to sponsor a demonstration forest to explore the possibilities of balancing US greenhouse gas emissions while producing wood on farms in the tropics.


The forest was planted in the Atlantic Zone of Costa Rica on the Las Delicias Farm, which is owned by the Rojas family.















The graph shown here details the carbon sequestration and growth rate in the Home Depot forest. It provides the total sequestration (upper lines) and current annual sequestration (last 12 months; lower lines) in tonnes of carbon dioxide and cubic meters of wood production.


Long-term management and profitability for the farmer are the keys to sustainability and long-term carbon storage in farm forests. This project is managed by Reforest The Tropics under a 25-year agreement between RTT and the farm owners. The forest belongs to the farmer while the rights to the CO2 sequestered belong to the Home Depot during the agreement.


Projects like this are win/win/win with the farmers profiting from the timber production and the world benefiting from CO2 reduction whilst Home Depot complies with their ethical and legal obligations.


To read more about trees removing CO2 and reducing your Carbon Footprint, click here.


To read about "synthetic trees" currently under development to combat global warming, click here


But trees not only remove CO2 from the atmosphere but also reduce global warming by acting as "global air conditioners". To read more about this remarkable finding by the University of Leeds, just click here.

Two great websites that make you think!

Whilst browsing the internet, I came across two very nice websites that I really liked and I hope you like them too:

The first is the Breathing Earth Website : this is a real time simulation of the world's CO2 emissions and birth and death rates. Whilst it is only a simulation, it did make me think.

1 ha of trees removes approximately 3.5 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere per annum and you can measure your own Carbon Count Number here. CO2 is one of the main contributers to Global Warming and reducing its emmission will help to stem the damage caused by global warming.

The other nice and totally unrelated website which I came across was Wonderclub listing the "Wonders of the World" , with the wonders of the world listed under:

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The Seven Wonders of the Medeival Mind

The Seven Natural Wonders of the World

The Seven Underwater Wonders of the World

The Seven Wonders of the Modern World

The Seven Forgotton Natural Wonders of the World

The Seven Forgotten Modern Wonders of the World

The Seven Forgotten Medeival Wonders of the Mind

The Forgotten Wonders of the World

This site brought home to me the number of places I need to travel to and see and how did we forget about all those other wonders?

http://www.wonderclub.com/AllWorldWonders.html

http://www.breathingearth.net/

More great news about trees!

We already know that trees are good for the environment - they remove carbon from the atmosphere, helping to reduce global warming.

It now turns out they are even better for the environment than we thought!

COFORD , the National Council of Forest Research and Development (Ireland) have recently announced in their Forestry and Wood December update 2008 that a chemical released by trees can help to cool the planet.

Scientists from the UK (Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science at Leeds University) and Germany have discovered that trees release a chemical that thickens clouds above them, thereby reflecting more sunlight and cooling the Earth.

One of the scientists, Dominick Spracklen said ""We think this could have quite a significant effect. You can think of forests as climate air conditioners."

The chemicals are Terpenes (which give pine forests their distinctive smell) and there release had puzzled scientists for years, with some believing that the trees released them to communicate, while others say they could offer protection from air pollution.

The research team found the terpenes react in the air to form tiny particles called aerosols. The particles help turn water vapour in the atmosphere into clouds. Spracklen said the team's computer models showed that the pine particles doubled the thickness of clouds some 1,000 m above the forests, and would reflect an extra 5% sunlight back into space.

He said: "It might not sound a lot, but that is quite a strong cooling effect. The climate is such a finely balanced system that we think this effect is large enough to reduce temperatures over quite large areas. It gives us another reason to preserve forests."

Because trees release more terpenes in warmer weather, the discovery suggests that forests could act as a negative feedback on climate, to dampen future temperature rise. The team looked at forests of mainly pine and spruce trees, but Spracklen said other trees also produce terpenes so the cooling effect should be found in other regions, including tropical rainforests.

So trees not only remove Carbon from the atmosphere but also thicken the clouds above them, helping to further reduce global warming.

Read the full COFORD document here