Human Activity in China and India Dominates the Greening of Earth, NASA Study Shows

NASA has published an article concerning a recent study about the recent increase in global leaf area—and humanity’s involvement therein.

China and India are making a disproportionately large contribution to this phenomenon—they “‘account for one-third of the greening, but contain only 9% of the planet’s land area covered in vegetation—a surprising finding, considering the general notion of land degradation in populous countries from overexploitation,’ said Chi Chen of the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, in Massachusetts, and lead author of the study.”

The full article discusses some of the implications of this phenomenon, both for future studies and for the climate itself.