Forty Percent of World's Forest Extinct if Global Warming Continues
6/14/98
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Title: Forty Percent of World's Forest Extinct if Global Warming Continues
Source: Itar-Tass
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 6/14/98
TOKYO, June 14 (Itar-Tass) -- If the global warming continues at the present
rate, the world will lose over 40 percent of its forests by the year 2010.
According to Sunday press reports, this dismal warning was made by a group of
researchers from several Japanese institutions, who extrapolated trends in the
ecological sphere with a computer.
In turn, dying forests will only aggravate "the greenhouse effect," since dead
trees will not be able to absorb carbonic gas, but, on the contrary, will exude
it.
According to calculations by Japanese researchers from the Tokyo technological
institute and the National ecological research institute, if temperature rises
only by two degrees Centigrade on the planet in the 21st century, over a
quarter of forests will die away.
If the average level of warming amounts to 3.5 degrees, this will result in the
destruction of 43 percent of forests. Damage to forests will be especially
destructive in the northern hemisphere. Qualitatively new types of forests may
appear in some regions. They will be able to adapt themselves to higher
temperatures.