When it comes to the fight against global warming, our forests offer a valuable service.
Trees act as carbon sinks, capturing CO2 – the main greenhouse gas heating up the Earth’s climate – from the air and storing it until they die.
But as man-made and natural causes of deforestation intensify, it is unknown how long or to what extent this important environmental service will continue.
In a new study, researchers in the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences (DAES) have turned to more than a century’s worth of data (from 1901 to 2012) in NOAA’s International Tree Ring Data Bank to both analyze historical tree growth at 3,579 forests around the world and create a model for future projections (from 2045 to 2060).
Their findings show that some of the largest tropical rainforests, such as the Amazon and Congo Basin, may soon undergo enhanced climatic stress due to global warming trends, resulting in reduced tree growth and their potential to act as carbon sinks. Temperate forests (which rely on high levels of precipitation and humidity) may instead benefit from a warmer and more humid planet.
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