http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34134366
There are just over three trillion trees on Earth, according to a new assessment.
The figure is eight times as big as the previous best estimate, which counted perhaps 400 billion at most.
It has been produced by Thomas Crowther from Yale University, and colleagues, who combined a mass of ground survey data with satellite pictures.
The team tells the journal Nature that the new total represents upwards of 420 trees for every person on the planet.
The more refined number will now form a baseline for a wide range of research applications - everything from studies that consider animal and plant habitats for biodiversity reasons, to new models of the climate, because it is trees of course that play an important role in removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
dolanbaker wrote:http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34134366
There are just over three trillion trees on Earth, according to a new assessment.
The figure is eight times as big as the previous best estimate, which counted perhaps 400 billion at most.
It has been produced by Thomas Crowther from Yale University, and colleagues, who combined a mass of ground survey data with satellite pictures.
The team tells the journal Nature that the new total represents upwards of 420 trees for every person on the planet.
The more refined number will now form a baseline for a wide range of research applications - everything from studies that consider animal and plant habitats for biodiversity reasons, to new models of the climate, because it is trees of course that play an important role in removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
How do they believe that the previous estimate is out by a factor of eight?
Or "There are just over tree trillion trees on Earth" as we say in Ireland.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
onlooker wrote:Question for Dohboi and Tanada
Hypothetically speaking is their a chance to re-grow most of the trees that have disappeared on a human time-scale?
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
dohboi wrote:Good points, as usual, T.
I wonder how big they decided something had to be before they categorize it as a 'tree.'
I imagine that there are lots and lots of sprouting tree seeds that never make it to full sized trees. Does each one count as a 'tree'?
dohboi wrote:Thanks for the info, vt. That's 60 years if the rate does not accelerate! As we run out of (or decide to move away from) ffs, I expect more and more areas will be using wood for fuel again.
One need only look at today’s satellite image of Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest to notice something’s terribly wrong. A vast 1,000 mile swath of what should be some of the wettest lands on the globe running south of the world’s largest river is covered by a dense pall of smoke. Scores of plumes boil up out of the burning and sweltering forest. Pumping dark clouds into the sky, the fires’ tell-tale streaks out over a drought-parched Brazil, across the Atlantic, and over to Africa where the plume is again thickened by yet more wildfires...
First, human-caused warming of the globe is pushing the great rainforest to slowly heat up and dry out. Alone, such warming would be enough to take down the great rainforest if the Earth warmed by between 2 and 4 degrees Centigrade. Since we’ve already seen Earth System warming on the order of 1 degree Celsius above 1880s values, the great forest is now feeling the stress of this added heat. But the forest is now also suffering the insults of what amounts to a half century of slash and burn agriculture...
onlooker wrote:I am wondering will not all these felled trees and drying out create a source of much new CO2 emissions and is that not what Dolan refers too?
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