ENVIRONMENT
Over the course of a century, Norway’s forests have tripled in size, doubling in just the last 40 years. Statistics Norway claims it’s because of more carbon dioxide (CO2) and warmer temperatures.
The survey is the 11th national land forest inventory since in 1905. The newsagency Forskning claims Norway is the first nation-state to conduct such a survey measuring forest cover by cubic metres of tree trunks. Today, there are more than 1 billion cubic metres.
Forest growth has continued for the whole of the 20th and much of the 21st century, but has begun tapering off as spruce saplings planted by schoolchildren in the 1960s are now fully mature and beginning in some cases to die or be logged.
“We have also had very good growth conditions for the forest over the past 10-20 years. There have been higher temperatures and longer summers,” Rasmus Astrup head of research at the firm NIBIO, told forskning.no.
Of the 47 million metric tons of CO2 Norway released into the atmosphere last year, 18 million were taken up by forests. But as more of the trees born in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s reach maturity, their efficiency at absorbing CO2 is expected to drop.
Comments