Global warming could push tropical forests to a point where photosynthesis fails and trees die. The ramifications are huge, scientists say.
For California to successfully fight climate change, the state’s politicians, business leaders and millions of residents will need to work a lot harder.“But this study is really the first study to establish how close tropical forest canopies may be to these limits,” he told reporters recently.
Currently, only about 0.01% of all sun-exposed leaves in upper tropical forest canopies exceed that threshold in a typical year, researchers found. But their modeling warns that if nothing is done to curb global warming, that percentage will increase in the future, and rampant leaf death and tree loss could possibly occur if tropical forests warm an additional 7.02 degrees — give or take 0.9 degrees.
The paper’s conclusion comes at a time when researchers are scrutinizing the affects of extreme heat on California trees — along with drought, fire and disease.Many plants in some regions of the state are already reaching critical temperature thresholds, such as in the Mojave Desert, said Louis Santiago, a professor of physiological ecology at UC Riverside, who was not involved in the study.
The Nature study comes with some uncertainties. Researchers note that the 116-degree tipping-point may vary among tree species. They also don’t know if relative humidity affects the temperature threshold, or how the death of individual leaves may influence a tree’s mortality.
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