NO GROW SNOW

Although climate warming generally may be boosting forest tree growth in other seasons and thus increasing carbon capture, it is bad for forests to lose the insulation of long-term lying snow of winter because it affects their health and growth. Not so much in Britain, perhaps (the research was carried out in New Hampshire, USA) but everywhere that temperate forests have long-lying winter snow over the ground which includes significant parts of Europe. This snow layer protects and insulates the tree roots and, without it, there is an adverse impact on trees’ growth and the forest ecosystem generally, reducing capacity for the capture of carbon from excessive atmospheric CO₂. Emerson Conrad-Rooney of Boston University in Massachusetts notes that scientists “are not incorporating that complexity of winter climate change, so they are likely overestimating what the future carbon storage will be”.

The American researchers set up forest sample plots to mimic different conditions of snow cover in winter, warming some plots with buried heating cables, removing snow from others and setting up freeze-thaw cycles.

It is easy to overlook aspects of the potential negative impact of climate change such as this. We need strong planet-wide investment in climate science to guide national and particularly, international policy. It does not help when politicians ignore what science is demonstrating. In the USA, I think you know who I mean, but climate change sceptics and anti-science propaganda are tragically only too common in world politics generally.

At Betts Ecology we do our best to keep abreast of scientific advances and ensure that we apply them throughout our practice and on the sites we manage.