SENR Seminar Series

The SENR Seminar Series welcomes Kaiguang Zhao, Assistant Professor, OSU School of Environment and Natural Resources, who will present Why Planting Trees May Worsen Global Warming?

Managing lands for biological carbon sequestration has been recommended or already pursued as strategies to combat climate change and global warming. However, land-use activities, such as forestry and bioenergy production, alter not just carbon storage but surface biophysics, including albedo, surface roughness, canopy structure, and canopy conductance, all of which induce biophysical forcings and affect climate. Such biophysical regularizations emphasize the need of considering both biophysical and biogeochemical pathways for crediting land-based carbon sequestration projects. I assessed the biophysical impacts of contrasting land-use, such as forests and alternative crops, using a remote sensing approach together with micrometeorology data.  Results highlight the policy implications of incorporating biophysical perspectives into reforestation and biofuel projects aimed for climate mitigation. The presentation will conclude with a glimpse of my other remote sensing work, ranging from measuring single leaves of a plant to mapping cities for the whole globe.

The SENR Seminar begins at 4:10 p.m in 103 Kottman Hall with a video link to 123 Williams Hall on the Wooster campus.