Forests Discovered Hiding 'Complex Role' in Global Climate System, Water Cycle

Forests are vast land areas dominated by large trees and other plant species, which serve as natural habitats for wildlife. These terrestrial ecosystems also play a major role in catastrophic weather and climatic phenomena, including flooding, climate change, and global warming. One of the known main functions of forests is removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by absorbing or storing it.

In 2024, a new study led by an international team of scientists revealed that forests are hiding an additional 'complex role' in relation to the global climate system and water cycle. These new insights focus on the relationship between forests, mainly their emission of organic gases, and the formation of clouds that could influence global temperatures. In summary, the new research paper strengthens the significance of forests on Earth.

While forests offer a crucial role in the mitigation of climate-damaging greenhouse gases and regulation of the world's temperatures, they continue to be at risk. Over the past several decades, various factors have contributed to the decline of forest areas or deforestation, including human activities such as illegal logging, mining, and cattle ranching. Wildfires, including forest fires and urbanization also contribute to forest decline.

Forest Complex Role

In the study published in the journal Nature Communications on Wednesday, February 7, researchers from Stockholm University in Sweden and their international colleagues provided new insights into the complex role that forests play in the climate system and water cycle. The research paper involved scientists from different institutions across five countries, including Sweden, Finland, Germany, Brazil, and the United Kingdom.

The international scientific team based their research focus on the premise that natural aerosol feedbacks are expected to become more significant in the future, as anthropogenic aerosol emissions decline due to air quality policy. The team evaluated forest aerosol-cloud-climate feedback, discovering large uncertainties in previous models.

Boreal and Tropical Forests

The research coalition focused on boreal and tropical forests by extracting two long-term observational datasets from them, along with the utilization of satellite data. The results of the research's analysis found these ecosystems differ in the amount of their emissions and cloud formation processes. This difference results in varying impacts on the forest-cloud-climate process.

This complex role of the mentioned feedback loop has been overlooked in the past, according to the February 2024 study. One of the study's authors, Sara Blichner from Stockholm University, stated the need for better climate models to accurately describe these complex interactions between forests, clouds, and the climate.

What we know so far is that since the year 2000, forests have removed an estimated average of 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a role which forests are known as a "carbon sink function." This process slows climate change and reduces the rate of anthropogenic carbon dioxide, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).