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2 results

  • 16 - Climate-Smart Forests

  • from Part II - The Scientific Basis
  • Gordon Bonan, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
  • Book:
    Seeing the Forest for the Trees
    Published online:
    02 February 2023
    Print publication:
    09 February 2023, pp 201-213

  • Summary

    Limiting planetary warming requires reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, and even removing carbon dioxide to lower the atmospheric concentration. Principal among the climate services of forests is their carbon storage. This is the basis upon which forest advocates call to protect, restore, and manage forests to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. Large areas of new forests must be planted to offset anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Yet the climate services of forests extend beyond just carbon. Forests influence climate through many biogeophysical and biogeochemical mechanisms, often in ways that augment the carbon benefits and sometimes to the contrary. To the carbon benefits of forests must be added their influence on temperature and precipitation through albedo, surface roughness, evapotranspiration, and biogenic aerosols. If the potential of forests to lessen planetary warming over the coming century is to be realized, their many influences on climate must be synthesized into an integrated understanding. In this, tropical forests are readily recognized as beneficial for climate.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees
  • Forests, Climate Change, and Our Future
  • Gordon Bonan
  • Published online:
    02 February 2023
    Print publication:
    09 February 2023
  • For centuries, people have understood that forests, and our utilisation of them, influence the climate. With modern environmental concerns, there is now scientific, governmental, and popular interest in planting trees for climate protection. This book examines the historical origins of the idea that forests influence climate, the bitter controversy that ended the science, and its modern rebirth. Spanning the 1500s to the present, it provides a broad perspective across the physical and biological sciences, as well as the humanities, to explain the many ways forests influence climate. It describes their use in climate-smart forestry and as a natural climate solution, and demonstrates that in the forest–climate question, human and sylvan fates are linked. Accessibly written with minimal mathematics, it is ideal for students in environmental and related sciences, as well as anyone with an interest in understanding the environmental workings of forests and their interactions with climate.