One of the major signs Ghana is taking the question about ”climate change” seriously, is the installation of a Canopy Tower at a location in the forests that circumfluence the city of Kumasi in the Ashanti region. The home of the continent’s dense forests, the Democratic Republic of Congo does not have the facility. The Canopy Tower stands erect, absolutely distinct from the commonplace definition in its specific role of monitoring temperatures in tree canopies.
The Canopy Tower which stands 60 meters tall reads the temperatures in the uppermost portions of trees or the crown of forests. The data so gathered are used to determine the physiological capabilities of trees such as photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis is the process by which plants use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to create oxygen and energy in the form of sugar.
The Tower has an in-built camera that captures temperature at the tree crown. Software is used to process the image to arrive at the actual temperature. Scientists employ this uncommon procedure due to its accuracy in the assessment of climate change.
Climate change points to increased temperatures. The phenomenon threatens the functions of the broad mass of nature’s creations.
The results produced by the Canopy Tower become the basis for simulations to predict the future. If forests wilt at the impact of existing levels of sunlight, then it becomes another basis for scientists to fathom and plan robust systems for worst-case scenarios.
If at the preliminary stage, trees are deemed to succumb to existing climatic conditions, as testified by the data collected, it means that the onslaught is severe and of detrimental consequence to man and the optimal uses of other natural resources.
This takes us to another level where the destruction of trees by climate change translates as the removal or depreciation of the forest cover, or in lieu of that trees and soil are best known for sequestrating carbon. Any tree vacuum means a drastic reduction in the storage or entrapment of carbon released into the atmosphere by several factors. In this case, the soil is overburdened in the role of carbon absorption.
By trapping heat from the sun, greenhouse gases have kept Earth’s climate habitable for humans and millions of other species. But those gases are now out of balance and threaten to change drastically, which living things can survive on this planet—and where?
The worst-case scenario is the situation dreaded by scientists working behind the scenes to hold off the directness of sunlight on other natural creations should climate change take to its most devastating form.
The Ghana Report was elucidated on this unique procedure of climate monitoring by the Director of CSIR-FORIG, Prof. Dr. Daniel Ofori, and Dr. Akwasi Duah-Gyamfi, Head of the Biodiversity Conversation and Ecosystems Services of the same institution.