European climatologists have concluded that the planting of forests in the circumpolar tundra and swampy regions of Eurasia and North America will lead not to a slowdown, but to an acceleration of global warming as a result of faster degradation and warming of soils.
"There is more carbon stored in the Arctic soils than in all vegetation on the rest of the Earth. The integrity of these soils is easily violated, and the source of these violations may only come as a result of the human activity, but also the roots of trees. In addition, these soils will absorb significantly more heat during the polar day if they are covered with green trees rather than white snow," said Jeppe Christensen, professor at Aarhus University (Denmark).
He and his colleagues concluded that massive forest planting would rather accelerate than slow down global warming, as more carbon compounds will eventually enter the atmosphere than trees will remove from the environment.
As an alternative to such plantings, scientists propose to develop a package of measures that would contribute to the growth of reindeer and other large herbivorous animals of the Arctic. They eat up excess vegetation in the tundra, which directly reduces CO2 emissions and reduces the likelihood of wildfires. Their migrations also disrupt the snow cover, which accelerates the "escape" of heat from the soil and slows down the melting of permafrost, the researchers concluded, tass.ru notes.
Alex Shishlo, Editor in Chief of the European Bureau, Rough&Polished
