This video, we're going to talk about how the environment and life are very closely interconnected, and this is because there's actually a dynamic interplay between the environment or the climate and living organisms. And so recall from way back in our previous lesson videos that the environment is constantly changing, and living species have this incredible ability to adapt to these new environmental conditions. But what you may not have realized yet is that in turn, these relatively new evolutionary adaptations can go on to influence environmental changes, including influencing the climate. And so a classic example of how life can impact the climate are forests because they can create a cooling effect in the climate via several different methods. Now we're only going to talk about 2 processes that occur in forests that create this cooling effect, and those two processes are photosynthesis and transpiration.
Now, of course, recall that photosynthesis is the process that converts solar energy into chemical energy, which in and of itself creates a cooling effect. But also, photosynthesis removes carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere, and carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in Earth's atmosphere. So by removing carbon dioxide gas, we're also removing the heat from Earth's atmosphere, creating a cooling effect. Now the process of transpiration is somewhat analogous to sweating, and so it's actually the evaporation and release of water as a gas from the leaves of these trees and plants. Now this water that's released can go on to form rain clouds.
Those clouds can block solar radiation creating a cooling effect, and the precipitation from those rain clouds can also create a cooling effect as well. So let's take a quick look at our image down below. Notice on the left-hand side we've got a forested region and on the right-hand side, we have a deforested region. And what you'll notice is that in the forested region, much of the solar energy that's coming in is being converted into chemical energy, and so there's not as much solar radiation available to be reflected and heat up the environment. So that creates a cooling effect.
Whereas notice with the deforested region, there's a lot more of that solar energy being reflected, so that's going to create a lot of heat. And also notice in the forested region, there's a lot more cloud coverage. And over here in the deforested region, there's not much cloud coverage at all, really none. And so what we're saying is forested regions create more of a cooling effect, and deforested regions create less of a cooling effect. So that concludes this video.
I'll see you all in our next one.