Thirteen years ago, on this day, January 11, 2010 a report appeared about trees….
Contrary to scientists’ predictions that, as the Earth warms, the movement of trees into the Arctic will have only a local warming effect, UC Berkeley scientists modeling this scenario have found that replacing tundra with trees will melt sea ice and greatly enhance warming over the entire Arctic region.
Because trees are darker than the bare tundra, scientists previously have suggested that the northward expansion of trees might result in more absorption of sunlight and a consequent local warming.
Sanders, R. (2010) .Trees invading warming Arctic will cause warming over entire region, study shows . Berkeley News, January 11.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388.9ppm. As of 2023 it is 419.
The context was, well, this is a predictable and predicted outcome. Was it coming faster than expected (as many of the impacts have been)? Don’t know, and for my purposes, it doesn’t matter.
What I think we can learn from this
- Blah blah albedo and feedback loops blah blah.
- The world is changing, thanks to things we have started, are fully aware of and are so far unwilling/unable to stop. So it goes.
What happened next
Emissions kept climbing. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide kept climbing. It kept getting warmer.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References
Sanders, R. (2010) .Trees invading warming Arctic will cause warming over entire region, study shows . Berkeley News, January 11. https://news.berkeley.edu/2010/01/11/arctic_warming/
And this from 2022-The march of the Arctic trees and what it reveals about the climate crisis