Jringe01: "It's strictly a suspicion on my part but when you pump billions of tons of CO2 into the air if we still had most of our forrests they would act to balance it out but we lose an area the size of the Netherlands every year to deforestation they can no longer do the job as effectively as they once did."
Unfortunately, climate is a little more complex. Briefly, it's the loss of tropical rain forests that is the most damaging. From Science Daily.
"Growing a forest might sound like a good idea to combat global warming, since trees draw carbon dioxide from the air and release cool water from their leaves. But they also absorb sunlight, warming the air in the process. According to a new study from the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, planting forests at certain latitudes could make the Earth warmer....
"The researchers found that while tropical forests help keep Earth cool by evaporating a great deal of water, northern forests tend to warm the Earth because they absorb a lot of sunlight without losing much moisture. In one simulation, the researchers covered much of the northern hemisphere (above 20° latitude) with forests and saw a jump in surface air temperature of more than 6° F. Covering the entire planet’s land mass with trees led to a more modest increase of about 2° F."
Oh-- the reason for more than 25% of the loss of rain forest? Beef production.
