The year 2024 was a record-breaking one, and not in a good way. In July, Earth’s average temperature was the highest it has been in at least 175 years, with July 22 specifically being the hottest day on record. This past summer was the hottest summer since about the year 1880, this year’s hurricane season started with Beryl — the earliest Category 4 hurricane on record — and a report published in June confirmed that human-driven global warming is at an all-time high.
But it isn’t just the headline-making record-breakers that scientists are worried about. As of this year, glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates due to all this human-induced heat, sea levels are irreversibly rising as a result of those glaciers melting, coastal communities are being ravaged by storms exacerbated through such sea level rise combined with high temperatures, and animals are getting evicted from their homes because Earth is changing too much, too quickly. Just last month, we saw Hurricane Helene destroy towns and claim lives — and its strength has indeed been connected to climate change.go
It’s certainly heavy to see the facts laid out like this, especially considering how much those paragraphs leave unsaid. This feeling, however, brings to the forefront something very important: it is, on a baseline level, valuable that this information exists at all. Perhaps the biggest limiting step in the fight against climate change is turning facts into actionable tasks and, in turn, convincing policymakers to start making major changes in the way our world is run. The climate crisis is a deceptively political problem, meaning the future of Earth hinges on data — and, depending on how you see it, that data hinges on an unlikely source: space exploration.
“The only way we can draw connections between the various phenomena that drive the complex functioning of our planet, tease out the natural and the human-driven, is to connect the dots among them,” Cedric David, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, told Space.com.
“For this, we need an ongoing fleet of space sentinels up high in space,” he said. “The same way we do annual checkups at the family doctor, we need to diagnose the health of our own planet.”
What exactly do climate satellites do?
The word “satellite” is thrown around a lot these days, but in basic terms, it just refers to any object sent to live in our planet’s orbit to perform a designated task. We have communications satellites to make our cellphones work, navigation satellites to make Google Maps give us correct driving directions and experimental satellites for the purpose of pure science, like this one that’s presently testing solar sail technology.
Amid the satellite party, we also have climate satellites.
“NASA and other international space agencies inspire the world with our exploration of planets in our solar system and beyond,” David said. “But a significant impact that space research has had has also been a much better understanding of our own planet.”
For example, there are satellites with spectrometers that can reveal the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, which is important because experts have revealed that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are increasing primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means a “supercharged” greenhouse gas effect, as the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) puts it — and a supercharged greenhouse gas effect means a global temperature rise. To be clear, there is such a thing as “natural” climate change. But, right now, nature isn’t the primary driver of global warming. Human activities are, as research has shown time and again.
Furthermore, there are many satellites, like NASA’s Landsat spacecraft, that can procure images of how forests are decreasing in size as industries chop them down to make room for commercial ventures. Imagery can also help track things like changing animal habitats, forced wildlife migration and diminishing food supply for certain species. There are also spacecraft with lasers that can help measure the rate at which ice caps are melting. Still others have synthetic aperture radars that show how our planet responds to earthquakes, which could increase in frequency as the Earth warms.
“Having worked at NASA for 10 years, I’ve seen a good number of remote observations that have really given me pause to reflect,” David said. “The most incredible, to me, is gravimetry.”
Satellite gravimetry helps scientists measure Earth’s gravitational influence — and most importantly, subtle changes in our planet’s gravitational field. As gravitational force is directly correlated with objects of mass, this means the technique can precisely measure when ice mass is lost, how oceans are rising and even fluctuations in groundwater supply. “Satellites can see what we cannot with our own eyes: changes in deep underground water storage that would require us to dig deep in the ground to witness firsthand,” David said.
“That’s just mind-blowing.”
Earth’s future is our future
The list goes on — and that’s a good thing. Having so much data allows scientists to do their due diligence, compiling extensive amounts of evidence for people in power to peruse before making climate-impacting decisions. During huge climate meetings— the COP conferences are probably the most well-known — that evidence can be presented to officials as part of a case for change. Without information, communication isn’t easy.
But oftentimes, satellite data is practical in the short term as well.
Hurricane watchers, for instance, help meteorologists predict where storms are going to fall — a crucial task, as these storms are bound to grow in intensity as well as frequency as the climate warms — and methane emission trackers can identify where exactly greenhouse-gas hotspots are located.
David also points out that, in a 2018 report, the U.S. National Academies recommended NASA build a series of spacecraft that will together form the Earth System Observatory, or ESO. This observatory, he explains, would have the duty of sensing the movements of our planet’s atmosphere, the generation of rain, the ups and downs of continents and the continued movements of mass around the world.
However, there’s still a lot more that can be done.
“One grand challenge remains: the accurate measurement of our snowpacks from space. Snow is notoriously difficult to quantify; we can see the area it covers, but it’s still difficult to sense how deep it is and how dense it is,” he said. “Given that many regions — including California, where I live — for which snowmelt is a primary source of freshwater, advancing our understanding of snow in areas that are difficult to access is imperative.”
David believes all of this information is “absolutely essential.” But I asked him to pick the one most useful kind of satellite data to have while forming possible solutions to climate change; he picked radar altimetry.
“We’ve had a series of radar altimetry satellites circling around our Earth in constant operation since 1992 that have allowed us to see the undeniable: oceans are in constant rise,” he said. “The 30-year-long curves of sea level rise are unquestionable evidence that our climate is changing.”
In other words, we have a continuous stream of data telling us the same thing again, and again, and again: Earth’s climate is changing, and it’s because of the humans that populate it. It is this kind of data that should be dictating our response.
“As we continue to explore our universe and inspire people, we are constantly reminded that, so far, the only place where we have found life is right here on Earth,” David said. “We can keep looking for a Plan B, but so far, there is only Plan A: our own planet.”
Let’s look at the Two Factors
The ever-growing human consumption and population is the biggest cause of forest destruction due to the vast amounts of resources, products, and services we take from it.
Half the world’s rainforests have been destroyed in a century; at this rate you could see them vanish altogether in your lifetime! We must take action so that these forests, its plants and animals and us humans who depend on them continue to live. Deforestation is in fact considered the second major driver of climate change (more than the entire global transport sector), responsible for 18-25% of global annual carbon dioxide emissions.
Direct human causes of deforestation include logging, agriculture, cattle ranching, mining, oil extraction and dam-building.
Every year about 18m hectares of forest – an area the size of England and Wales – is cleared
BANNER PHOTO: Tropical rainforest along the shoreline of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Photo by Faizal Abdul/CIFOR.
Tropical rainforests are one of the world’s most complex ecosystems. These hot and humid forests harbor millions of species—10 percent of the world’s known species can be found in the Amazon alone—which together form a unique structure that rises in stories from the forest floor to the tops of the tallest trees. Each of these layers holds its own unique community of plants, animals and other creatures that interact to create a rainforest. This complex ecosystem is a sum that is truly more than its parts, but its complexity means that disturbances to individual layers are in fact threats to the entire forest’s natural order.
The rainforest floor: Where dead things go to… well, die
Rainforests, like all forests, begin with the soil. Despite the vast amount of life it supports, rainforest soils are actually very nutrient poor, lacking minerals like phosphorus, calcium and magnesium which typically come from weathered rocks and earning them the moniker “wet deserts”.
What the forest floor is rich in however, is fungi, bacteria and insects that drive the process of decomposition. Because of the hot and humid environment, the nutrients present in organic matter are cycled out of the soil and into growing vegetation extremely rapidly. Animals or bits of foliage that die and fall to the forest floor are quickly scavenged by other organisms to support the forest’s rapid growth.
This hungry system is therefore strongly impacted by anything that interferes with the flow of nutrients. Hydroelectric dams, for example, can halt the flow of sediments downriver. There are currently 140 dams either built or under construction in the Amazon basin that are trapping nutrients behind their concrete walls.
What the rainforest floor lacks in nutrients it makes up for in carbon storage. Carbon from organic matter is stashed away in the soil over centuries of forest growth, yet it can be released in a matter of years. Clear cutting forests unlocks the carbon stored in forest soils, making it more likely to be released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change.
The understory: The rainforest’s dark basement shelter
One layer up from the forest floor is the understory. Here light is at a premium. The thick vegetation above means that at most, only about 5% of the bright tropical sunshine will reach the residents of the understory. The plants that grow here have adapted to the shady conditions with wide leaves to trap every fleck of sunlight. Thick canopy vegetation also shields the understory from harsh winds and rain, sheltering growing seedlings.
Understory fires in the satellite imageryEven with advancements in fire detection using remote sensing, some fires still go unnoticed in the satellite imagery. Understory fires are notoriously hard to detect because of their slow-moving, low-intensity nature. Because of this they are often shielded from the view of satellites by the canopy overhead— even as the sustained heat causes serious damage to young trees and shrubs below.
In a healthy, mature rainforest, the understory will be relatively empty. Thick, scrubby vegetation is indicative of some disturbance that has opened a light gap. Any form of clearing opens up the roof of the forest and the downpour of sunlight favors fast growing shrubs and vines over the slower-growing saplings of keystone tree species. Harsh sun and wind also dries out clearings and the edges of the forest, making them susceptible to burning.
When farmers clear rainforest for crops or livestock using fire, the flames can easily escape into the understory of the surrounding forest. These understory fires are often not big enough to destroy large trees, but they do kill small thin-barked trees and young saplings, creating even more dry, dead wood that increases the risk of further fires.
Areas with clearing between 2001 and 2018 (left) align with high fire risk weather conditions in Brazil. Fire weather risk recorded as of March 7, 2020.
The canopy: A tree top power station
Above the understory and knit together by the thick crowns of the trees is the canopy. Up here it is warm, sunny and crowded, like a popular beach vacation spot. An estimated 50-90% of life in the rainforest lives up in the trees—swinging, squawking and slithering through the branches.
The canopy is the main site of interchange for energy, water vapor and atmospheric gasses like oxygen and carbon dioxide. Canopy leaves act as trillions of tiny solar panels converting the strong sunlight to energy, and water evaporating from the trees contributes to the humid climate around tropical rainforests.
The canopy is also populated by a class of plants called epiphytes, which grow in the “canopy soils” (decaying leaves and organic matter caught in the crooks of tree branches) and pull most of their nutrients from the air. This makes them particularly vulnerable to air pollution.
A recent study found that increased levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the atmosphere from human activity can lead to alterations in the chemical make-up of the canopy soils which could have big impacts on the diversity of canopy life— the same way polluted runoff can cause algal blooms in water.
The emergent layer: Ancient pillars of the forest
The emergent layer is composed of the oldest and tallest trees. Breaking through the canopy and sometimes reaching over 200 meters above the ground, emergent trees are the “kings” of the rainforest. These keystone hardwood species like Brazil Nut, Mahogany and Kapok provide critical habitat for large birds and primates. This layer is threatened particularly by selective logging practices.
Large emergent trees are targeted for their value as timber. Some species of birds like Macaws nest in large cavities found exclusively in these old growth trees and therefore suffer these losses hardest. Additionally, although only one tree is cut, woody vines called lianas that are strung between trees often pull down others as the cut tree falls, and the infrastructure required to move logging equipment into the thick forest tears down trees along the way.
Logging roads expanding into the Peruvian Amazon. Roads like these typically precede further loss in the surrounding forest.
One rainforest
Although each layer of the rainforest is distinct, they are inextricably connected—by animals dispersing seeds and plants cycling nutrients up to the canopy and back down again. Research has even shown that trees communicate with each other via mutualistic relationships with fungi. Damage done to one segment of the forest ripples down and outward, often having broader impacts than are immediately visible.
Understanding these connections, both within the forest and to the wider global climate, highlights the need to tread carefully when it comes to rainforests. Their complexity and interconnected structure mean seemingly small actions can cause unexpected damage.
Logging
Logging is believed to be the second largest cause of deforestation. Timber companies cut down huge trees such as mahogany and teak and sell them to other countries to make furniture. Smaller trees are often used for the production of charcoal. Vast areas of rainforest are cut in one go (clear felling) and the most valuable trees are selected for timber, leaving the others for wood chipping. The roads that are created in order to cut and remove the timber often lead to further damage: see the effect of forest roads under “Oil Companies”.
Unsustainable agriculture
Much of the fruit, cereals and pulses we buy from tropical countries have been grown in areas where tropical rainforests once thrived. The forests are cut down to make way for vast plantations where products such as bananas, palm oil, pineapple, sugar cane, tea and coffee are grown. As with cattle ranching, the soil will not sustain crops for long, and after a few years the farmers have to cut down more rainforest for new plantations.
Cattle ranching
Many rainforests in Central and South America have been burnt down to make way for cattle farming, which supplies beef to the rest of the world. It is estimated that for each pound of beef produced, 200 square feet of rainforest are destroyed. The cleared land cannot be used for long without the forests’ nourishment. The soil soon becomes dry and the cattle farmers then have to move on to create new cattle pastures leaving a trail of destruction.
Mining
The demand for minerals and metals such as oil, aluminium, copper, gold and diamonds mean that rainforests are destroyed to access the ground below. Developed nations relentlessly demand minerals and metals such as oil, aluminium, copper, gold and diamonds, which are often found in the ground below rainforests. The forest therefore has to be removed in order to extract them. Poisonous chemicals are sometimes used to separate the waste from the minerals, for example mercury, which is used to separate gold from the soil and debris with which it is mixed. These chemicals often end up in rivers, polluting water supplies which local people depend on, killing fish and affecting the river’s ecosystem.
Oil companies
Rainforests are seriously affected by oil companies searching for new oil deposits. Often large roads are built through untouched forests in order to build pipelines and extract the oil. This encourages settlers to move into previously pristine forests and start slash-and-burn farming or cutting more timber to sell or to produce charcoal. Once established, the oil pipelines which transport the oil sometimes rupture, spouting gallons of oil into the surrounding forest, killing wildlife and contaminating the water supplies of local villages.
Dams
The World Bank and large companies invest money in developing countries to build dams for the generation of electricity. This is often viewed as renewable ‘clean’ energy, but it can involve flooding vast areas of rainforest. Dams built in rainforest areas often have a short life because the submerged forest gradually rots, making the reservoir water acidic, which eventually corrodes the dam turbines.
What is the Relationship Between Deforestation And Climate Change?
What, exactly, is the relationship between deforestation and climate change?
The Rainforest Alliance breaks down the numbers for you—and explains our innovative approach to keeping forests standing.
Among the many gifts forests give us is one we desperately need: help with slowing climate change. Trees capture greenhouse gases (GHGs) like carbon dioxide, preventing them from accumulating in the atmosphere and warming our planet.
When we clear forests, we’re not only knocking out our best ally in capturing the staggering amount of GHGs we humans create (which we do primarily by burning fossil fuels at energy facilities, and of course, in cars, planes, and trains). We’re also creating emissions by cutting down trees: when trees are felled, they release into the atmosphere all the carbon they’ve been storing. What the deforesters do with the felled trees—either leaving them to rot on the forest floor or burning them—creates further emissions. All told, deforestation on its own causes about 10 percent of worldwide emissions.
Knowing that deforestation robs us of a crucial weapon in the battle against climate change—and creates further emissions—why on Earth would anyone clear a forest? The main reason is agriculture. The world’s exploding population has made it profitable for big business to raze forests so it can plant mega crops like soy and oil palm; meanwhile, on a much, much smaller scale, subsistence farmers often clear trees so they can plant crops to feed their families and bring in small amounts of cash.
But there’s a tragic irony to clearing rainforests for agriculture: their underlying soils are extremely poor. All the nutrient-richness is locked up in the forests themselves, so once they are burned and the nutrients from their ashes are used up, farmers are left with utterly useless soil. So on they go to the next patch of forest: raze, plant, deplete, repeat. All told, agriculture is responsible for at least 80 percent of tropical deforestation.
Not surprisingly, agriculture causes emissions, too—in fact, farm emissions are second only to those of the energy sector in the dubious contest for the emissions title. In 2011, farms were responsible for about 13 percent of total global emissions. Most farm-related emissions come in the form of methane (cattle belching) and nitrous oxide (from fertilizers and the like).
All told, deforestation causes a triple-whammy of global warming:
We lose a crucial ally in keeping excess carbon out of the atmosphere (and in slowing global warming),
Even more emissions are created when felled trees release the carbon they’d been storing, and rot or burn on the forest floor, and
What most often replaces the now-vanished forest, livestock and crops, generate massive amounts of even more greenhouse gases. Taken together, these emissions account for a quarter of all emissions worldwide.
Our accounting of the ugly impacts of deforestation only considers emissions and doesn’t even touch on how the lives and traditions of forest communities are ruined when forests are razed, or how many species of plants and animals are lost, upsetting the delicate balance of ecosystems. The uptick in mosquito-borne diseases, for example, or the rapid spread of roya, an insidious plant disease that threatens our supply of coffee are all indirect consequences of deforestation and global warming.
There’s no doubt about it: the best thing we can do to fight climate change is keep forests standing. Yet the need to feed a rapidly growing global population—projected to reach 9 billion by 2050—is urgent. That’s why the Rainforest Alliance works with farmers to advance a variety of strategies, such as crop intensification (growing more food on less land), and with traditional forest-dwellers to develop livelihoods that don’t hurt forests or ecosystems. We stand more of a chance in this fight with forests standing strong.
The Second Factor is the Indian Ocean brown cloud.
The Indian Ocean brown cloud or The Asian brown cloud is a layer of air pollution that recurrently covers parts of South Asia, namely the northern Indian Ocean, India, and Pakistan.[1][2] Viewed from satellite photos, the cloud appears as a giant brown stain hanging in the air over much of the Indian subcontinent and the Indian Ocean every year between October and February, possibly also during earlier and later months. The term was coined in reports from the UNEP Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX). It was found to originate mostly due to farmers burning stubble in Punjab and to lesser extent Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The debilitating air quality in Delhi is also due to the stubble burning in Punjab.[3]
The term atmospheric brown cloud is used for a more generic context not specific to the Asian region.[4]
Causes
The Asian brown cloud is created by a range of airborne particles and pollutants from combustion (e.g., woodfires, cars, and factories), biomass burning[5] and industrial processes with incomplete burning.[6] The cloud is associated with the winter monsoon (October/November to February/March) during which there is no rain to wash pollutants from the air.[7]
Observations
This pollution layer was observed during the Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX) intensive field observation in 1999 and described in the UNEP impact assessment study published 2002.[3] Scientists in India claimed that the Asian Brown cloud is not something specific to Asia.[8] Subsequently, when the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) organized a follow-up international project, the subject of study was renamed the Atmospheric Brown Cloud with focus on Asia.
The cloud was also reported by NASA in 2004[9] and 2007.[10]
Although aerosol particles are generally associated with a global cooling effect, recent studies have shown that they can actually have a global warming effect in certain regions such as the Himalayas.[11]
Impacts
Health problems
One major impact is on health. A 2002 study indicated nearly two million people die each year, in Asia alone, from conditions related to the brown cloud.[12]
Regional weather
A second assessment study was published in 2008.[13] It highlighted regional concerns regarding:
Changes of rainfall patterns with the Asian monsoon, as well as a delaying of the start of the Asian monsoon, by several weeks.[14][15] The observed weakening Indian monsoon and in China northern drought and southern flooding is influenced by the clouds.
Increase in rainfall over the AustralianTop End and Kimberley regions. A CSIRO study has found that by displacing the thermal equator southwards via cooling of the air over East Asia, the monsoon which brings most of the rain to these regions has been intensified and displaced southward.[16]
Retreat of the Hindu Kush–Himalayan glaciers and snow packs. The cause is attributed to rising air temperatures that are more pronounced in elevated regions, a combined warming effect of greenhouse gases and the Asian Brown Cloud. Also deposition of black carbon decreases the reflection and exacerbates the retreat. Asian glacial melting could lead to water shortages and floods for the hundreds of millions of people who live downstream.
Decrease of crop harvests. Elevated concentrations of surface ozone are likely to affect crop yields negatively. The impact is crop specific.
Cyclone intensity in Arabian Sea
A 2011 study found that pollution is making Arabian Sea cyclones more intense as the atmospheric brown clouds has been producing weakening wind patterns which prevent wind shear patterns that historically have prohibited cyclones in the Arabian Sea from becoming major storms. This phenomenon was found responsible for the formation of stronger storms in 2007 and 2010 that were the first recorded storms to enter the Gulf of Oman.[17][18]
Global warming and dimming
The 2008 report also addressed the global concern of warming and concluded that the brown clouds have masked 20 to 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the past century. The report suggested that air pollution regulations can have large amplifying effects on global warming.[clarification needed]
Another major impact is on the polar ice caps.
Black carbon (soot) in the Asian Brown Cloud may be reflecting sunlight and dimming Earth below but it is warming other places by absorbing incoming radiation and warming the atmosphere and whatever it touches.[19]
Black carbon is three times more effective than carbon dioxide—the most common greenhouse gas—at melting polar ice and snow.[20]
Black carbon in snow causes about three times the temperature change as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. On snow—even at concentrations below five parts per billion–dark carbon triggers melting, and may be responsible for as much as 94 percent of Arctic warming.[21]
Silva-Send, Nilmini (2007) Preventing regional air pollution in Asia : the potential role of the European Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution in Asian regionsUniversity of Kiel, Kiel, Germany, OCLC262737812
Fact: With all that’s required to mine and process minerals — from giant diesel trucks to fossil-fuel-powered refineries — EV battery production has a significant carbon footprint. As a result, building an electric vehicle does more damage to the climate than building a gas car does.
But the gas car starts to catch up as soon as it goes its first mile.
The toxicity of the battery material is a direct threat to organisms on various trophic levels as well as direct threats to human health. Identified pollution pathways are via leaching, disintegration and degradation of the batteries, however violent incidents such as fires and explosions are also significant.
Logging roads expanding into the Peruvian Amazon. Roads like these typically precede further loss in the surrounding forest.
