Check out the updated agenda for our Climate Landscapes Conference, https://climate-landscapes.org, starting today! Really looking nice, with great presentations and room for exchange and discussion.
Nature can’t be seen and analyzed linearily. It’s always more complex. That’s why we must look at how the cycles of carbon, water and energy are closely coupled. Here is a draft sketch of mine to show this.
Tomorrow, 18/10/22, the Climate Landscapes Conference, https://climate-landscapes.org, will look into this in more detail. Come and join us!
And check out my presentation “Planting water”.
Countdown for our Climate Landscapes Conference, https://climate-landscapes.org, with one day to go. We’ll bring together scientists and practitioners from around the world under the (sub)title “Working with plants, soils and water to cool the climate and rehydrate Earth’s landscapes“. Come and join us!
Rising temperatures and weather extremes such as droughts and floods threaten the Earth and the human population, besides biodiversity loss, land degradation and other major issues. However, it seems we have a solution for many of these issues right before us: We can work with plants, soils and water to cool the climate and rehydrate and restore Earth’s landscapes.
With our “Climate Landscapes Conference“, we want to draw attention to the interrelationships and potentials of vegetation, soils, water and climate to cool the climate and rehydrate earth’s landscapes. A combination of scientific presentations, enterprise engagements and best practices will show
Our conference aims to provide a forum for people from different fields of science, practice, politics, administration, business and media. You will have the chance to learn about the interwoven natural relationships from world-renowned speakers and participants, discuss the appropriate solutions, create new networks and find ways for the next urgent steps.
For more information and registration please check out our website.
It’s (almost) all about forests and water: An investigation of naturally occurring water recycling in rainforests finally marries the results of global climate models with observations. Alarmingly, it also suggests that deforestation can greatly reduce tropical rainfall.
Join us next week for much more insights in our Climate Landscapes Conference.
We have reworked the agenda for our upcoming Climate Landscapes Conference. We have over 20 fascinating speakers lined up, all with deep knowledge in their fields, showing you how vegetation, soils, water & climate are interconnected, and how we can successfully cool the climate and rehydrate Earth’s landscapes. Don’t miss these incredible insights for creating a better world!
Under the (sub)title “Working with plants, soils and water to cool the climate and rehydrate Earth’s landscapes” we are inviting you to the upcoming online Climate Landscapes Conference, 18.-19.10.2022.
Rising temperatures and weather extremes such as droughts and floods threaten the Earth and the human population, besides biodiversity loss, land degradation and other major issues. However, it seems we have a solution for many of these issues right before us: We can work with plants, soils and water to cool the climate and rehydrate and restore Earth’s landscapes.
With our “Climate Landscapes Conference“, we want to draw attention to the interrelationships and potentials of vegetation, soils, water and climate to cool the climate and rehydrate earth’s landscapes. A combination of scientific presentations, enterprise engagements and best practices will show
Our conference aims to provide a forum for people from different fields of science, practice, politics, administration, business and media. You will have the chance to learn about the interwoven natural relationships from world-renowned speakers and participants, discuss the appropriate solutions, create new networks and find ways for the next urgent steps.
For more information and registration please check out our website.
Rising temperatures and weather extremes such as droughts and floods threaten the Earth and the human population, besides biodiversity loss, land degradation and other major issues. However, it seems we have a solution for many of these issues right before us: We can work with plants, soils and water to cool the climate and rehydrate and restore Earth’s landscapes.
With our “Climate Landscapes Conference“, we want to draw attention to the interrelationships and potentials of vegetation, soils, water and climate to cool the climate and rehydrate earth’s landscapes. A combination of scientific presentations, enterprise engagements and best practices will show
Our conference aims to provide a forum for people from different fields of science, practice, politics, administration, business and media. You will have the chance to learn about the interwoven natural relationships from world-renowned speakers and participants, discuss the appropriate solutions, create new networks and find ways for the next urgent steps.
For more information and registration please check out our website.
Wow, 70°C on the tilled soil (38°C air temperature). Incredible. In comparison, the patchy clover right next to it is 33°C cooler!
I am tempted to exclaim: If you want to cool the planet, cover the soil!
More on the background of the influence of land use on climate and water cycle in my UNEP paper, presentation, conference “Climate Landscapes”.
Cooling forests: Here, we combine extensive records of remote sensing and in situ observation to show that non-radiative mechanisms dominate the local response in most regions for eight of nine common LCMC perturbations. We find that forest cover gains lead to an annual cooling in all regions south of the upper conterminous United States, northern Europe, and Siberia—reinforcing the attractiveness of re-/afforestation as a local mitigation and adaptation measure in these regions. Our results affirm the importance of accounting for non-radiative mechanisms when evaluating local land-based mitigation or adaptation policies.
Nonlocal effects: Deforestation influences surface temperature at the location of deforestation (local effects) and elsewhere (nonlocal effects). […] Using simulations in a climate model, we show that deforestation-induced changes in the brightness of the surface influence surface temperature mainly nonlocally and thus may be largely overlooked in observation-based data sets. The simulations show that the nonlocal effects have a larger impact on global average surface temperature than the local effects, independent of how much area is deforested and at which latitude the deforestation takes place.
Stable forests: We argue that resource and finance allocation for stable forests should be incorporated into countries’ and donors’ comprehensive portfolios aimed at tackling deforestation and forest degradation as well as resulting emissions.
Key policy insights:
Forests and their impacts on low level clouds:
However, changing the forest cover can further affect the climate system through biophysical effects. One such effect that is seldom studied is how afforestation can alter the cloud regime, which can potentially have repercussions on the hydrological cycle, the surface radiation budget and on planetary albedo itself. Here we provide a global scale assessment of this effect derived from satellite remote sensing observations. We show that for 67% of sampled areas across the world, afforestation would increase low level cloud cover, which should have a cooling effect on the planet. We further reveal a dependency of this effect on forest type, notably in Europe where needleleaf forests generate more clouds than broadleaf forests.
My presentation on “Working with plants, soils and water to cool the climate and rehydrate Earth’s landscapes“.
As it looks, we have a pretty exciting tool in the climate as well as agriculture discussion with multiple benefits: more vegetation (especially in agriculture; through undersowing, intercropping, agroforestry, but also through a different form of animal husbandry, forest conversion, water retention) means more fertile soils, more water storage capacity and infiltration, more nutrients, more habitat for insects & co, more … and v. especially a cooling (of the layers near the ground), heat loss into space, more clouds with more precipitation and more sunlight reflection, which in turn contributes to the cooling of the climate, as well as activates the small (weakened) water cycles.
In short, we can(t) work with nature to cool the climate, strengthen the small water cycles, and in the process make agriculture, forestry, and water management more resilient and “fertile.”
This talk is based on the findings of my UNEP article (exists in French, Spanish, Chinese too).
My UNEP paper on “Working with plants, soils and water to cool the climate and rehydrate Earth’s landscapes“.
The continued destruction of forests, the deterioration of soils, the subsequent loss of terrestrial soil water storage and the reduction of water retention in the landscape are disrupting the movement of water in and through the atmosphere. This disruption causes major shifts in precipitation that could lead to less rainfall and more droughts in many areas of the world, increases in regional temperatures and an exacerbation of climate change. These changes affect regional climate, but can also impact regions far away. Understanding the interwoven relationships and the subsequent fluxes of energy between plants, soils and water on the ground, as well as in the atmosphere, can help mitigate climate change and create more resilient ecosystems.
Translations into French, Spanish, Chinese to be found here (#25).
I am organising an international online event “Climate Landscapes”, 18.-19.10.2022. Many well-known scientists from various fields have already agreed to be part of the conference, which is really great.
My aim however is not to organise yet another scientific conference, but one where different players/stakeholders in society will get together, get in contact and talk to each other, across disciplines and “sectors”. Thus, I want there many representatives from other-then-research to be present.
My question(s) to you is/are:
Best wishes,
Stefan
PS: “Working with plants, soils and water to cool the climate and rehydrate Earth’s landscapes”: my UNEP paper; my presentation.
Meteorologist Millan Millan’s research work discovered that rain was disappearing because land use was affecting evapotranspiration rates. In this podcast he talks about what we need to do to restore rains and ecosystems.