According to a climatologist at the University of Washington in St. Louis, records of ancient plant life reveal the true history of global temperatures.
Higher temperatures attract plants, and subsequently rising temperatures, according to new climate models published in Science Advances on April 15.
Vegetation change on climate change
(Photo: NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / BELGA / AFP via Getty Images)
Alexander Thompson, a postdoctoral fellow in terrestrial and planetary science at the University of the Arts and Sciences, modified the simulations from a known climate model to reflect the importance of vegetation change as a major consequence of a sustainable climate over the past 10,000 years.
Since the previous ice age, Thompson has been plagued by difficulties in simulating Earth’s atmospheric temperatures.
Too many of these models show a constant rise in temperature all the time.
Proxy climate data, on the other hand, presented a different story.
Many of these sources indicate a significant increase in global temperatures between 6,000 and 9,000 years.
Thompson suspects that the models ignore the importance of changes in vegetation in favor of the effects of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere or ice sheet.
According to Thompson, “pollen data show significant vegetation growth during this period,” as quoted by ScienceDaily.
However, earlier models showed only limited vegetation development, so although some of these other simulations contained dynamic vegetation, the change in vegetation was almost not sufficient to account for pollen records.
The Sahara Desert in Africa has become brighter than it is today at the beginning of the Holocene geological era, resembling pastures.
Deciduous and coniferous forests in the middle latitudes and the Arctic, as well as other vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere, thrive.
Thompson used pollen records as evidence and developed a set of tests using the Community Earth System (CESM) model, one of the most respected models in a wide range of climate models.
It uses simulations to account for various unreported changes in vegetation.
Read also: UN report: Measures against climate change and global warming are not enough
How can plants affect global warming?
Biodiversity affects climate at the local, regional and global levels, but most climate models ignore it because its variables and effects are too diverse and complex to calculate.
However, two recent studies show how important it is to be able to account for the response of vegetation to elevated carbon dioxide levels in climate models when trying to predict our climate future.
The direct impact of carbon dioxide on plants, according to scientists from the Carnegie Institution of Science, contributes to global warming.
Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through the stomata in their leaves, which they use for photosynthesis.
They then expel water through the stomata, a process known as evapotranspiration, which cools the plant in the same way that sweat cools people.
On a hot day, a tree can release up to 10 gallons of water, which cools the surrounding air.
The stomata of plants shrink when carbon dioxide levels rise, releasing less water into the air and limiting the cooling effect.
Long Cao and Ken Caldeira of Carnegie Mellon University have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in their model and found that reduced evapotranspiration is responsible for 16% of global warming, with the balance due to the effects of CO2 capture.
More than a quarter of warming in North America and Asia is due to the impact of rising CO2 on plants.
Related article: Heat caused by climate change could cause Christmas tree shortage this year
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