harlock Posted September 1, 2022 Posted September 1, 2022 The heat of the burning wood comes from solar energy. So trees store solar energy by removing it from environment. The absence of trees causes a greater dispersion of solar energy in the environment causing an increase in temperature(Global Warming regardless of CO2). All the wood mass we see is related to the solar energy stored by the trees for many years. (I haven't considered the fruits of the trees etc, which in a year decompose and release solar energy and CO2 again) About it 1-Can there be a relationship between glaciations-forest decrease and forest increase-ice retreat(Glaciations cycles. Regardless of CO2)? 2-How much does it affect global warming?
iNow Posted September 1, 2022 Posted September 1, 2022 Your idea here reminds me of my daughters fear that she's going to overflow the pool she's swimming in by dropping just one of her ice cubes into it.
Ken Fabian Posted September 2, 2022 Posted September 2, 2022 (edited) 11 hours ago, harlock said: The heat of the burning wood comes from solar energy. So trees store solar energy by removing it from environment. The absence of trees causes a greater dispersion of solar energy in the environment causing an increase in temperature(Global Warming regardless of CO2). All the wood mass we see is related to the solar energy stored by the trees for many years. (I haven't considered the fruits of the trees etc, which in a year decompose and release solar energy and CO2 again) About it 1-Can there be a relationship between glaciations-forest decrease and forest increase-ice retreat(Glaciations cycles. Regardless of CO2)? 2-How much does it affect global warming? It has taken quantification of every possible influence and estimations of their interactions to reach the conclusion that greenhouse gases - CO2 mostly - are the biggest (but not only) driver of global warming. Some of those influences are considered too small to be significant over the time scales that are under consideration, like volcanic heat, waste heat, orbital cycles/changes. These are not excluded from consideration, just estimated to be of low signicance. Specific to the points you are raising the impacts of vegetation changes to albedo (how much change to reflection of sunlight, ie it's dispersion) are being estimated and included along with other things that affect reflectivity, like snow cover. As are the flows of carbon into and out of vegetation and soils and oceans. I don't think the energy flows/stores within vegetation are explicitly considered in climate modeling but are still intrinsic to estimations of changes to global biomass and could be derived from them. Global Carbon Cycle - (a bit dated but it gives a good overview) - Estimations of climate forcings (including albedo and other land use changes) - Edited September 2, 2022 by Ken Fabian 1
sethoflagos Posted September 2, 2022 Posted September 2, 2022 13 hours ago, harlock said: 1-Can there be a relationship between glaciations-forest decrease and forest increase-ice retreat(Glaciations cycles. Regardless of CO2)? Yes there is, since both are driven by Milankovitch cycles. However, the relationship is largely indirect and complex in that glaciations and forestation do not respond to individual Milankovitch cycles to the same extent. 'Regardless of CO2' is not a valid constraint as it is a critical contributory factor to both glaciation and forestation, but again, the response curves have different shapes and different lags (delay between cause and effect). So it's once again a complex correlation. Take a look at the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_African_climate_cycles. It explains the relationship between glaciation cycles and Sahara greening cycles in not too technical a way for the layperson to understand. 13 hours ago, harlock said: 2-How much does it affect global warming? I defer to @Ken Fabian's excellent response (+1). ie Less than you might think. We could in principle reverse much of the damage done by the last two centuries of coal burning by backfilling every coal mine ever dug with charcoal produced from sustainable forestry. But that (at best) would be a thousand year project to solve a fifty year crisis. Too little too late.
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