What would be the likely effect of clearing forests and converting them to grasslands and crops on…..?
Deforestation 101: The rainforests have been disappearing from the Amazon basin for decades. This was the issue before global warming became the issue. But to answer your questions. A) Reflectivity will be a function of the wavelength of the light absorbed by the trees, grasslands, or crops and the angle at which the sunlight reacts. Crops and grasslands are typically horizontal surfaces while forests are vertical with multi-faceted canopies. What this means is that crops and grasslands will provide large flat areas for direct reflection. The 3 dimensional nature of the forests canopy will serve to limit direct reflection. B) You can choose to include or ignore the impact of fossil fuels on harvest crops and cutting down trees. Either way its all about carbon. Lush forests will most likely convert more carbon dioxide into oxygen than crops and grasslands.
