New York City mapped its trees and calculated each one’s economic benefits

Re:New York City mapped its trees and calculated each one’s ... by sampo on Friday December 02, 2016 @12:08PM (#13090324)

Urban vegetation:

1. Has high reflectance in the infrared, so they reflect sunlight back to the sky before it is converted to heat. Built surfaces would absorb this radiation and heat up.

2. Reduce heat also by evaporating water.

3. Reduce ground level heat by providing shadow.

4. Remove pollution from air, such as sulfur oxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), ozone (O3) and fine particles.

But yes, converting these to money is very indirect and involves a lot estimation.

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Re:New York City mapped its trees and calculated each one’s ... by tropo on Friday December 02, 2016 @01:52PM (#13091213)

Urban trees in Israel made the news last week. They were having a huge affect on heat and fine particles due to an urban forest fire.

Next time, try ice plant and jade plant, or just go with concrete.

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Re:New York City mapped its trees and calculated each one’s ... by mememachine on Friday December 02, 2016 @02:19PM (#13091441)

Whats the contribution of 1. to climate change? Insignificant?

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Re:New York City mapped its trees and calculated each one’s ... by ajkjk on Friday December 02, 2016 @03:10PM (#13091879)

The contribution of trees and albedo in general to climate change is huge. But I doubt that urban trees, specifically, contribute a significant effect. They do greatly contribute to avoiding the also-problematic urban heat-island effect, though.

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