Return of Trees to Eastern U.S. Kept Region Cool as Planet Warmed

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https://e360.yale.edu/digest/eastern-us-reforestation-climate-change

By YaleEnvironment360. 

Excerpt: Over the 20th century, the U.S. as a whole warmed by 1.2 degrees F (0.7 degrees C), but across much the East, temperatures dropped by 0.5 degrees F (0.3 degrees C). A new study posits that the restoration of lost forest countered warming, keeping the region cool. “This widespread history of reforestation, a huge shift in land cover, hasn’t been widely studied for how it could’ve contributed to the anomalous lack of warming in the eastern U.S., which climate scientists call a ‘warming hole,’” said lead author Mallory Barnes, of Indiana University. “That’s why we initially set out to do this work.”.... 

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