As a resident of the Houston area, I am abundantly familiar with the idea of an urban heat island. The difference between a hot day inside the 610 loop and one 50 miles north is quite significant.
I moved from what is effectively the middle of the world's largest parking lot to the middle of a forest and I feel like I've transported myself 1000 miles instead of 50.
I've also developed a strong sense that the forest seems to have some kind of influence over the weather patterns. Not a strong or active one, but it definitely seems like a thing when you're watching Doppler radar.
[1] - https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/co2-is-making-...
Trees seem to be—unsurprisingly—specialist organisms in the art of maximizing local hydrological features. They help create wetter environments so more trees can live there, and things can get a little more wet still, for more trees, then more water, and so on.
The research I’ve read is mostly along the lines of “we’ve observed these really interesting patterns and we suspect these are the underlying mechanisms”, but as I recall, proving the cause and effect of such large scale phenomenons isn’t trivial. I’m also not someone who researches this stuff, so my take on it is essentially irrelevant. The bottom line is: lots of evidence and research supports your observation, and it’s an extremely interesting field of research. I think it’s the key to making life better for a lot of life on the planet.
I'm convinced this is a very strong effect. The forest definitely protected my home from some nasty windstorms we've had. Out toward the lake where there is less coverage, essentially everyone was knocked off the grid for a whole day while I was unaffected - Despite having my power being delivered by similar overhead lines that follow a very narrow clearing through the middle of the forest. You'd think it would be a shooting gallery but it's the opposite thing. Isolated trees seem way more lethal to grid infrastructure.
On one hand, the mechanism seems readily apparent. On the other, it's also astounding. It's not just that the trees create physical disruption with their own physical bodies, but also through how they modify the properties of the atmosphere above and around them. That's incredible. They transport immense amounts of water into the atmosphere.
1. How Trees Bring Water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY8ds4BiG1A
2. Amazon Seeds Its Own Rain: https://www.science.org/content/article/amazon-seeds-its-own...
I now see that u/steve_adams posted pretty much the same point. I wonder how I was taught this 25 years ago in high school, with local graphs for evidence, and it still isn't scientific consensus. Super local weather models aren't a thing? (This is in jest, they obviously are a thing. Perhaps it's harder than I imagine.)
I don't know of any place on earth with more installed concrete or greater ability to deploy it.
Where I live the forest effectively disappears every autumn, and then it gets really cold. Six months later the forest grows back and then it gets really hot. The ambient temperature is obviously intimately correlated with the presence or absence of the forest.
I chuckled .. others downvoted. Humour on HN is hard :/
Like if we discovered spitting at a housefire would slow it down more than expected, it's still not preventing it from burning to the ground. It's just going to allow some asshat to say "See? Let's defund the fire brigade."
In any case it's certainly not spitting at a fire.
So this is completely viable, and then some! Even more so if one accounts for the fact that increases in CO2 are creating a substantially greener planet making this even easier.
I also don’t see anyone wanting to defund other efforts because trees make a difference. We may see local improvements, but I doubt we’d see global improvements such that anyone would think we’re home free. I could be wrong.
I see this as more of a quality of life improvement that could help make the inevitable bigger fight more bearable.
Where would these enormous fast-growing trees get their hefty nutrient requirements from?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_photosynthesis#Some...
"the efficiency of photosynthesis ... is usually below 1%, ... However, plants are efficient in using CO2 at atmospheric concentrations,"
This engineered tree would have to pump CO2 into itself.
[1]: https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/in-focus-green-ocean...
thought it was good.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1481687.The_Forest_an...
https://www.amazon.com/Forest-Sea-Economy-Nature-Ecology/dp/...
morsch•8mo ago
Does planting trees really help cool the planet?
Forests offset warming more than thought, but not enough
jopicornell•8mo ago
vixen99•8mo ago
dr_dshiv•8mo ago
pjerem•8mo ago
Don’t get me wrong : we may or may not have to do this one day but it can only be a temporary solution in a too late transition scenario. It’s not a solution on top of our current fossil based economy else that would just be a time bomb.
dr_dshiv•8mo ago
And by start, I mean do tests and research. That is currently banned.