Water vapour from the trees can also reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the planet’s surface by soaking up solar energy. And in some cases, trees can have a fire suppression effect.It is well known that planting trees helps cool the climate by pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. But where they are planted matters, a new study in the journal npj Climate Action has found.Tropical regions provide the most powerful climate benefits of planting trees, while in higher latitudes, trees could have a slight heating effect in some cases, the study says.“Our study found more cooling from planting in warm, wet regions, where trees grow year-round,” lead author James Gomez of University of California, Riverside (UCR) said. “It’s not that planting elsewhere doesn’t help — it does — but the tropics offer the strongest returns per tree.”This is because in addition to capturing carbon, trees cool the planet in a number of other ways. One significant one, whose effects the study quantified, is evapotranspiration.“It’s just like the way sweating cools your body,” Gomez said. “In the tropics, there is constantly water available for trees, and that increases transpiration.”Water vapour from the trees can also reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the planet’s surface by soaking up solar energy. And in some cases, trees can have a fire suppression effect. “In tropical savannahs… trees are much more fire resistant than grasses,” Gomez said.© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:Climate change