NASA Says Tropical Rainforests May Hold a Key To the Climate Change Issue

While tropical rainforests may be vanishing, a new study led by NASA researchers reveals yet another reason why trees in the tropical rainforest may in fact be man's best friend. 

With greenhouse gas emissions on a constant rise since the dawning of the industrial revolution and the subsequent population growth that followed, researchers in recent years have tried to estimate exactly how much carbon dioxide is actually absorbed by plants to better assess a serious global issue. And in a new NASA-led study, researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were able to combine three different divisions of science to reveal that tropical rainforests may be absorbing far more CO2 than many researchers previously thought, in response to rising atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas.

While some CO2 is absorbed by "boreal forest" regions in Canada, Siberia and other northern regions densely covered in snow, the new study published in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences estimates that tropical forests absorb approximately 1.4 billion metric tons of the total global absorption of 2.5 billion metric tons per year.

"This is good news, because uptake in boreal forests is already slowing, while tropical forests may continue to take up carbon for many years," lead author of the study and researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, David Schimel says.

Though not entirely efficient, as some would hope, forests and other land vegetation currently removes approximately 30 percent of human CO2 emissions during the process of photosynthesis. And while the rates may be increasing due the pressures of increased emissions, should the rates decline, humans may find the Earth a far more inhospitable place with dwindling oxygen present and temperatures, courtesy of global warming, on the rise.

Due to the important implications of greenhouse gases and their removal from our atmosphere many researchers are are pointing out that the study is less of an accounting practice, and far more of a representation of how the Earth can function to help mitigate human presence-but only to a point.

"It has big implications for our understanding of whether global terrestrial ecosystems might continue to offset our carbon dioxide emissions or might begin to exacerbate climate change" co-author of the study and researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Britton Stephens says. 

Combining three separate practices of the sciences to offer a unique view of the greenhouse gas problem, the researchers involved in the new study devised a method for direct comparisons, estimating concentrations and values from three different sources: computer models of ecosystem processes, atmospheric models, and data collected from experimental plots in the tropics and satellite images, as well. Basing the combined data on the efficacy of each test, the researchers believe that their newest study reveals a view of the greenhouse gas issue never-before-seen, and shows how nature may be changing to better meet the needs of mankind.

"Until our analysis, no one had successfully completed a global reconciliation of information about carbon dioxide effects from the atmospheric, forestry and modeling communities," study co-author and JPL researcher, Joshua Fisher says. "It is incredible that all these different types of independent data sources start to converge on an answer."