Global Forest Loss The Past 35 Years Has Been More Than Offset By new Growth

Study shows global forest loss over past 35 years has been more than offset by new forest growth:

A team of researchers from the University of Maryland, the State University of New York and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has found that new global tree growth over the past 35 years has more than offset global tree cover losses. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes using satellite data to track forest growth and loss over the past 35 years and what they found by doing so.

There has been a growing consensus in recent years that because humans cut down so many trees (most particularly in the rainforests) that global tree cover is shrinking. In this new effort, the researchers have found that not to be the case. They contend that global tree cover is actually increasing.

Read more at: phys.org/news/2018-08-global-for…t.html#jCp

The researchers report that most of the new tree cover occurred in places that had previously been barren, such as in deserts, tundra areas, on mountains, in cities and in other non-vegetated land. They further report that much of the new growth came about due to efforts by humans (such as reforestation efforts in China and parts of Africa) and because of global warming—warmer temperatures have raised timberlines in some mountainous regions, and allowed forests to creep into tundra areas. Other areas of new tree growth resulted from large farm abandonments in places like Russia and the U.S. The researchers report that their calculations showed that human activities have directly caused approximately 60 percent of new global tree growth. They suggest their technique for monitoring tree cover could be used to predict tree cover changes in the future due to global warming.

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Read more at: phys.org/news/2018-08-global-for…t.html#jCp

Fact is, CO2 is a tremendous stimulant to plant growth. Since satellites have measured it, about 30 years ago, the Earth has greened upwards of 30%.

www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/201…ning-earth

 

h/t Natura Naturans

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