{"id":25274,"date":"2025-10-09T12:36:45","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T16:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/?post_type=story&p=25274"},"modified":"2025-10-30T16:20:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T20:20:04","slug":"connecting-sunlight-and-forests-to-curbing-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2025\/10\/09\/connecting-sunlight-and-forests-to-curbing-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting sunlight and forests to curbing climate change\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Nine percent of the 172 carbon projects examined in the study showed an \u201calbedo benefit,\u201d meaning that the percentage of sunlight that a forest reflected could make it cooler, helping mitigate climate effects. The 16 projects were concentrated in parts of Central America, South America, and Africa.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Clark researcher investigates the albedo impact on carbon credits<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To curb the effects of climate change, private and public organizations across the world manage carbon projects to plant or restore forests, aiming to remove CO2<\/sub> from the atmosphere. In turn, as part of the global voluntary carbon market, they sell carbon credits to companies aiming to offset their greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the climate benefits of some carbon projects may be overestimated because they don\u2019t account for changes in albedo \u2014 the percentage of sunlight that a forest reflects or absorbs, making it cooler or hotter \u2014 in their calculations, according to an Oct. 6 Nature Communications<\/em> article<\/a> co-authored by Geography Professor Christopher Williams<\/a> of Clark\u2019s School of Climate, Environment, and Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Geography
Geography Professor Christopher Williams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNearly half of all reforestation credits issued in these projects would not have been issued if albedo had been used as a threshold for project siting and deducted for remaining projects, canceling about $8 billion of credits at an average price of $20 per tonne [a metric ton],\u201d Williams says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If carbon-crediting protocols accounted for albedo, \u201cit would allow the marketplace to better prioritize projects with greater climate benefit and more accurately quantify credits for addressing unabated emissions,\u201d according to Williams and his co-authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They point to data published last year<\/a> in Nature Communications<\/em> by Clark research scientist Natalia Hasler<\/a> that could be used in \u201can iterative approach for incorporating albedo considerations.\u201d The data were collected and analyzed by Hasler, lead author of the March 2024 article with Williams and partners from The Nature Conservancy and ETH-Zurich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Clark team developed a toolset<\/a> now being used by practitioners and land managers to estimate how albedo change might affect reforestation or afforestation projects across the world. It was used to calculate the recent study\u2019s findings, according to Williams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a pleasant surprise to see that by luck or good planning the majority of projects are places where albedo changes are not hugely concerning,\u201d says<\/a> Susan Cook-Patton, lead forest restoration scientist at The Nature Conservancy and a co-author of the Oct. 6 article. \u201cBut our study shows that enough projects occur in places where albedo changes need to be taken seriously. And we provide a tiered approach for improved climate accounting to ensure that we unlock nature\u2019s greatest potential as a powerful ally in the fight against climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the study, Williams, Cook-Patton, and their peers examined 172 afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation projects within the voluntary carbon market, \u201cprojected to provide nearly 800 million metric tons CO2<\/sub>e [carbon dioxide equivalent] of climate mitigation over the next century. None of the five registry standards and accompanying protocols used by these projects account for changes in albedo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They found that more than 10 percent of the projects \u201coccur in places where albedo may entirely negate the climate mitigation benefit, and a quarter occur in places where albedo may halve the mitigation benefit. Yet, the majority are concentrated where albedo changes are expected to be minimal, and 9% of projects occur where albedo would augment the mitigation benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers urged scientists to develop more \u201ctools to enable accounting for other important biophysical changes, such as evapotranspiration, which is not yet quantifiable within the voluntary carbon market.\u201d In addition, they suggested more \u201ccollaborative communication and education with market stakeholders who may not be familiar with biophysical factors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Natalia
The recent albedo study was based on data analyzed by Natalia Hasler, a research scientist from the George Perkins Marsh Institute, affiliated with the School of Climate, Environment, and Society.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n


<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The climate benefits of some carbon projects may be overestimated because they don\u2019t account for changes in albedo \u2014\u00a0the percentage of sunlight that a forest reflects or absorbs, making it cooler or hotter \u2014 in their calculations, according to Geography Professor Christopher Williams and his peers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":25276,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"var(--clarku-color-green)","story_headerImg":25276,"section_label":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"displayed_author":[242],"featured":[495],"topic":[529,131,521,132,160,165,162,134],"class_list":["post-25274","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","displayed_author-meredith-woodward-king","featured-research","topic-climate","topic-climate-change","topic-environment","topic-environment-and-sustainability","topic-faculty-research","topic-geography","topic-research","topic-school-of-climate-environment-and-society"],"yoast_head":"\nConnecting sunlight and forests to curbing climate change\u00a0 | ClarkU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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