BOSTON — Researchers from Boston University have found that increased vegetation growth, or greening, has effectively slowed global warming. <br /><br />Greening usually involves intensive land use for farming, planting trees at a large scale or natural reforestation of lands that have been abandoned. The study found that roughly half of Earth's vegetated land has been greened due to this technique.<br /><br />For the study, scientists analyzed satellite images from the 1980s to the 2010s. They noticed an increase of greening in China and India over the decades due to afforestation efforts.<br /><br />As green leaves convert sunlight to sugar, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is replaced with water vapor which cools Earth's surface. <br /><br />In the study, researchers explained that global greening may have slowed the rate of global warming by roughly 0.2 to 0.23 degrees Celsius.<br /><br />Study authors Shilong Piao and Xuhui Wang, explained in a Boston University news release that this provides "credible evidence" that human activities are dramatically impacting Earth's climate.