PLANTING forests in the far north may increase rather than combat greenhouse
warming. The Kyoto Protocol calls for reforestation to slow warming by removing
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Growing forests do lock up CO2, but
during the winter they soak up solar energy that would otherwise have been
reflected by the snow-covered tundra.
At last month鈥檚 meeting of the European Geophysical Society, British and
German climate modellers separately confirmed that heat absorption prevails.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a paradox,鈥� says Martin Claussen of Germany鈥檚 Potsdam Institute for
Climate Impact Research. With northern forests, he says, the reduction in CO
2 has less of an effect than the lack of snow-covered tundra, which leads
to warming.
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