Russian forests are growing | News letters

No country in the world has more forests than our neighboring Russia.

There is more than one-fifth of the world’s forest area.

Climatologists are interested in forests. In short, this is because trees absorb carbon dioxide₂ from the air in the growth process and stores it as carbon. More carbon in trees gives less carbon dioxide₂ Up in the air. Most researchers believe it is positive for global temperature.

An international team of researchers has investigated just how important Russia’s huge forest areas really are. Their study was published in the journal Nature.

The Soviet Union was dismantled in 1991. Since then, Russia has reported very little change in its forest areas.

Does not match other measurements taken at a distance.

Scattered numbers create confusion

Several measurements have shown both an increase in woody cover and an increase in productivity.

This has led to uncertainty about the actual state of the Russian forest, explains the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis In a press release.

Part of the purpose of the study was to get to more reliable numbers.

The researchers couldn’t get out and count all the trees, so they got numbers from both the National Forest Registry of Russia and the World Forest Watch System.

In combination with remote sensing, the data has been used to make new estimates of forest growth.

Tall for Rosland

The result was the happiest researchers. In favor of Russia. They concluded that Russia’s forests are growing and thriving.

Total biomass is said to have increased by about 40 percent more than was reported in the state’s forestry register.

The new study also estimates carbon sequestration at 47 percent higher than what has been reported in the international greenhouse gas inventory.

The numbers apply to the years between 1988 and 2014.

tall – men …

Thus, green forests in Russia are positive for climate calculations. The fact that the forest spreads more than expected gives an added advantage in the margin.

But the researchers behind the study stress that more extreme climates in the future could hit forests hard. In this way, the positive effects can quickly go to zero.

Jenni Nordén of the Norwegian Institute of Natural Research commented on the same in 2020. This was related to an article on forskning.no that trees that grow faster can also have a shorter lifespan and a lower carbon bond ability.

Relying on increased tree growth as a means of increasing carbon stocks and carbon sequestration is a short-term strategy, commented on the article.

– not only because of this noticeable effect, but also because of the increased risk of tree death as a result of more extreme climate in the future; Storms, droughts, and high temperatures kill or weaken trees and make them more susceptible to diseases and pests.

Referral: Schepaschenko, Dmitry., m.fl. (2021). Russian forests sequester much more carbon than previously reported. nature.

(This article was first published in Forsking).