Scientists at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada have discovered some disturbing evidence. Apparently plants cannot soak up as much CO2 as usual when temperatures become unusually hot, and such temperatures are expected to become more common in the future.
In order to discover this evidence, scientists extracted four intact segments of grassland about 3sq m in area, and weighing about 12 tons each, from the prairies of Oklahoma. They were then placed in four special chambers in which temperature, moisture, and sunlight were precisely controlled in order to conduct research. The conditions inside 2 of the chambers were set to mimic the average weather patterns in the prairies. The other two chambers underwent the same control, except that for a whole year the temperatures were set 4C higher. It turned out that the plants in the 2 warmer chambers soaked up 30% less CO2 than the ones in the other chambers. Plants soak up less CO2 when it gets hot because in dry weather they must conserve water, reducing the openings of their pores to do so, which in turn constrains the amount of CO2 they can take up. Even when the temperatures returned to normal, the soil had excess CO2 that had to be emitted into the air. Evidence of this has been also found in uncontrolled conditions around the world.
This definitely bothers me. We should stop being dependent on plants to do all of the clean up work and start using renewable energy. Or we need to stop deforestation, albeit quickly.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7620921.stm
1 comment:
This is disturbing news because plants play a vital role in cleaning up the atmosphere and if they fail to, global warming will come that much faster. Although, nature is amazing to adapting, so maybe a new species of plant will emerge to play the role of cleansing the atmosphere.
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