Understanding How Planting Forests Affects Climate with Earth System Models
One example of a change caused by nature-based solutions is when planting forests darkens the surface, causing it to absorb more sunlight and become warmer in that area, particularly in snowy climate like much of Canada. Earth system models are tools used to understand the carbon cycle and other biogeochemical processes, but they currently can only provide a basic representation of nature-based solutions.
Our project aims to use Earth system models to quantify how effective nature-based solutions are on land. We want to understand the impact of these solutions on the climate as a whole. To do this, we will use better knowledge of how elements cycle through the environment and more powerful computers. This will help us improve the parts of the models that deal with soils, agriculture, and plants. We will also develop ways to measure the effectiveness of nature-based solutions, so we can get a complete picture of how they benefit the climate. This evaluation is important to make sure that when we balance the greenhouse gases, we release with the ones we remove, we truly achieve “net-zero” carbon emissions and stabilize the global temperature.
The NBS Climate project will:
1.
Use computer models to simulate how well
nature-based solutions
work on land.
2.
Understand the impact of these solutions on the climate.
3.
Improve models for soil, plants, and farming to make them more accurate.
4.
Measure the effectiveness of nature-based solutions to see how they help the climate.
