Are We Planting The Wrong Trees?

Trees grown since 1750 in Europe have increased global warming, researchers have claimed.

16:33 09 February 2016

From 1850, Europe’s forests have grown and now cover 10per cent more land before the industrial revolution. For the past 150 years, foresters have been planting faster growing, more commercially valuable trees such as Norway spurce and Scots pine.

 

However, a team of researchers is now questioning the impact of these new trees on the climate. They found that when controlled by humans, forests store less carbon.

 

Dr Kim Naudts, who carried out the study, said: "Even well managed forests today store less carbon than their natural counterparts in 1750.”

 

She explained: "Due to the shift to conifer species, there was a warming over Europe of almost 0.12 degrees and that is caused because the conifers are darker and absorb more solar radiation."

 

The researchers said that the 6per cent increase in temperature could be attributed to the burning of fossil fuels. They suggested that the world should look carefully at the types of trees that are being planted and find better ways to manage them.

 

"We shouldn't put our hopes on forests to mitigate what is an emission problem," said Dr Naudts.

 

"Our results indicate that in large parts of Europe, a tree planting programme would offset the emissions but it would not cool the planet, especially not if the afforestation is done with conifers."