Across vast areas of the tropics (热带地区) from Southeast Asia to Africa, forests have been cut down in recent decades, but at least in some areas reforestation efforts have been made to take in carbon (碳).
It remains to be seen, however, whether these newly planted forests will manage to survive in the face of changing climate, which will bring more intense heat, lengthened droughts, and occasional wildfires.
To find out, scientists from the University of Hong Kong decided to run hundreds of computer models to explore various results under different conditions. The key aim of the study was to see if carbon stored in these regrown forests would remain locked up, and they have found this will likely be the case even under the most severe climate conditions.
“Our computer models show in many parts of the tropics reforestation is worth it, because these new forests should be able to survive until the end of the century and continue to store extra carbon from the atmosphere in the process,” explains Jed Kaplan, a professor at the university.
However, the role of newly planted forests as a carbon collector in the tropics will have only a limited effect on climate change, especially because many existing forests in the tropics will struggle in the face of rising temperatures and are already losing their ability to store carbon, “Massive tree planting won’t be enough to avoid climate disaster, but it can play a role. And if done with biodiversity and the people who call these forests home, reforestation can have many benefits,” says Alexander Koch, the other author of the study.
“So far we have only been able to look at carbon, but other aspects such as biodiversity in restored forests are also impacted by climate change. Assessing those impacts will be the next step,” he adds.
【小题1】What is the discovery of the study?| A．Changing climate will bring about many natural disasters. |
| B．Reforestation is of great benefit to biodiversity in the tropics. |
| C．Regrown forests will store carbon even in the face of climate change. |
| D．The chance of newly planted forests surviving tough conditions is slim. |
| A．Worried. | B．Doubtful. | C．Disappointed. | D．Favourable. |
| A．Reforestation is useless in stopping climate change. |
| B．More measures should be taken as well as reforestation. |
| C．The carbon in the atmosphere will increase in the future. |
| D．Existing forests can no longer take in carbon from the air. |
| A．It takes all the factors into account. | B．It still needs to be further improved. |
| C．It fails to achieve the expected result. | D．It provides a way to avoid climate change. |
