TITLE:
Comparative Study of Cooling under Shades of Some Forestry Tree Species with Respect to Ambient Temperatures
AUTHORS:
S. K. Gupta, Jeet Ram, Hukum Singh, Parmanad Kumar
KEYWORDS:
Solar Radiation, Ambient Temperature, Tree Crown, Tree Shade, Cooling, Bio-Physical Processes
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.6 No.11,
November
16,
2018
ABSTRACT: Trees create microclimate under their crowns in comparison to the outside
ambient atmospheric temperature. Sun is the pivotal source of radiant energy
reaching the earth atmosphere of which heat is more important than light.
The radiant energy reaches the ground without any barricade whereas the
tree crown impedes it in reaching the earth’s surface. During the day, when
insolation impinges on tree crown, a portion of it is reflected back to the
space, other portion is absorbed by the canopy increasing the temperature of
leaves and the remaining part reaches the ground penetrating through the
crown. Thus, a significant coolness is experienced under the shade of trees in
comparison to open sunshine, with qualitative variations. The cooling produced
by trees under their shades varies with species to species due to variation
in several anatomical, structural and physiological attributes of the species.
Climate is changing more rapidly prominently due to human activities
especially indiscriminate felling of trees and it is feared that it will create
problems on availability of energy, water and food security. Economic value
takes over ecological benefits in selection of species in plantation programmes
and this might have been due to the lack of scientific data about varying effectiveness
of ecological services bestowed by different species. In the present
study, an endeavor has been made to understand as to how a tree is integrated
to the effects on atmosphere and responses to changing conditions with respect
to differential cooling produced by five selected forestry tree species belonging
to different categories. Analysis of data has come out with gradation
of the sample species in respect to their cooling effect in the atmosphere in
terms of yearly, quarterly, monthly and diurnal basis.