Categories
Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Global land change 1982-2016

Does the world have more or less trees today than 40*-years ago?

Congratulations if you answered more. It’s a fact, as the paper today from Xiao-Peng Song (et. al.) from the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, clearly demonstrates.

Over the 35-year period studied total tree cover, globally, rose by 7.1% (*I’m betting things have only gotten greener since 2016?). Big contributors to this outcome are Europe and Eastern Europe where forestation rose by 35% and China which comes in close behind with a 34% increase.

Hold on though before you begin browbeating tree-huggers about vexation being uninformed. The sub-tropical gain in trees was accompanied by a big loss of tropical cover with the main villains Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

What’s also clear from this study is humanity is responsible for most of these changes. The authors attribute 60% of the changes directly to us and the balance to factors, such as climate change, which we may also have had a hand in.

In summary there’s something for both optimists and pessimists here. We have more trees than before but their location and variety are different. More trees – good. Shift in variety – perhaps less so?

Me, I see a half-full glass at the end of the read but a full-glass would be preferable to one either half-full or half-empty. You can read the paper in full at the NASA Public Access site by following this link Global Land Change.

Happy Sunday.

print