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URI A century of reforestation helped keep the eastern US cool (2024)
Arubis wrote 5 hours 54 min ago:
I recall a factoid from growing up in southern New England: that
Connecticut had more forestland in my youth than it had a hundred years
earlier, because so much agricultural land had been abandoned to
nature. Presumably farmers wanted soil without an annual stone harvest.
saalweachter wrote 4 hours 50 min ago:
It was largely wool, as I understand it. Those rocky hills are
terrible for row crops, but fine for pasture, so you stack up some
rocks into fences and fill them with sheep.
Then people stop wearing wool, and here we are.
edoceo wrote 3 hours 3 min ago:
NE, winter. We still wearing wool, from Bean. My 2nd favorite
fiber.
user3939382 wrote 7 hours 21 min ago:
Apparently earthworms are a problem here. The saplings need the brush
to protect them and the worms which are non native are mulching it.
IIRC. If half of what I hear is happening in the Canadian forests or
Amazon is true itâs sickening. Of course you have the naive and
confused among us who debate or defend this abhorrent and unnecessary
exploitation.
kevin_thibedeau wrote 5 hours 54 min ago:
There used to be worms before the ice. They're just repopulating. By
extension, none of the trees are native either. The natural state of
the higher latitudes was mud and rock 10000 years ago.
jandrewrogers wrote 5 hours 21 min ago:
North America did not have an extensive earthworm ecology like
Eurasia even though they had some worms. They are an invasive
animal[0] brought from Europe that creates problems for the many
North American plants and ecosystems not adapted to the pervasive
effects of such worms. The worms you find in soil are largely
non-native.
[0]
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_earthworms_of_North...
kevin_thibedeau wrote 4 hours 47 min ago:
That is the spiel from academics on the publish or perish
treadmill. Fossil burrows of the same form as the European worms
exist in North America. Worms were also maintained to the south
of the ice cover so it is disingenuous to declare that all North
American worms are nonnative.
BoiledCabbage wrote 1 hour 55 min ago:
> it is disingenuous to declare that all North American worms
are nonnative.
Nobody made that claim. That's the strawman you chose to argue
against instead.
imoverclocked wrote 7 hours 36 min ago:
Anecdata: I have a plot of land in the Santa Cruz Mountains and half of
it has redwood coverage and the other half is sparsely covered by much
smaller species. On hot days I can go to the redwood half and get an
easy 10F temperature drop.
Shade is part of the equation and so is retaining water. Once I was
introduced to the idea of check dams and their role in water
conservation, I started noticing how the redwoods often build their own
on hilly terrain.
The landscape in a forest can be quite complex and rich.
efavdb wrote 6 hours 41 min ago:
Can feel the same effect here in CA. Iâve heard that in areas with
more humidity the effect is much weaker though, presumably because
the air has higher heat capacity or something and so doesnât cool
as quickly in the shade.
ahartmetz wrote 5 hours 15 min ago:
Might also have something to do with the ground and trees
evaporating less water into the already humid air, reducing the
cooling effect of evaporation.
SoftTalker wrote 6 hours 11 min ago:
I live in the Midwest US, plenty humid here in the summer but
itâs consistently 5 degrees cooler in my wooded neighborhood than
it is in the nearest town about 10 miles away. The effect is real.
efavdb wrote 5 hours 53 min ago:
Interesting. I asked a friend from Texas and he said he wasn't
even aware that shade was cooler until he moved out. Need more
data.
humanrebar wrote 21 min ago:
Counterpoint: Shaded spots at work parking lots in Texas fill
up the fastest. Conspicuously so. Also, use of windshield
visors is much more prolific than in cooler climates.
I can't believe your Texan friend never noticed those
phenomenon.
Retric wrote 5 hours 10 min ago:
Itâs not about shade alone. A cliff or single tree provides
shade, but a forest provides evaporative cooling during the
heat across a huge area alongside shade, it ends up a
noticeably different climate.
Thereâs some other effects such as photosynthesis converting
sunlight into chemical energy which in the short term is like
reflecting that energy into the sky. At night plant metabolism
warms the environment slightly and blocking the sky reduces
radiative cooling to space, but thatâs generally a good
tradeoff for comfort.
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