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Posted on 23rd May 2014 |
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Forest Carbon Loss Underestimated This story just reminds us how little we know about our planet, and how inexact science can be. It seems that previous estimates for loss of "locked-up carbon" in forests, due to deforestation, has been underestimated. It seems that, in addition to the direct loss due to the trees which are felled, the remaining forest is degraded, causing carbon loss in the unfelled trees. Not only is this bad in itself, but it calls into question recent forestry practices which attempt to limit environmental damage and carbon release by various partial logging strategies. In the immortal words of Arthur Dent: "So this is it. We're going to die." Water goes 'missing' with snow loss If, despite the story above, you still think that your understand how our planet works, check out this story. It describes how recent research shows that, as more precipitation falls as rain instead of snow, due to global warming, less of the water makes it to the rivers. Yes, that is even if the same amount of water falls out of the sky. The researchers are not completely sure where the missing water goes (maybe it evaporates before reaching the rivers, or maybe it soaks in to the ground to become ground-water), but the effect is real. Given that so many rivers have less water in nowadays anyway, due to too much being taken by humans (from the rivers and lakes directly, and from ground-water) for human and agricultural uses, this is likely to become a real problem. Are you doing your bit for water conservation? Here are some (mostly very easy) tips to conserve water. |