Comparative Study of Cooling under Shades of Some Forestry Tree Species with Respect to Ambient Temperatures

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.