Rainforest at Biosphere 2 Offers Glimpse into Future of the Amazon

Phoenix666 writes:

Rainforest at biosphere 2 offers glimpse into future of the Amazon:

Tropical forests may be more resilient to predicted temperature increases under global climate change than previously thought, a study published in the journal Nature Plants suggests. The results could help make climate prediction models more accurate, according to the authors-an international team led by scientists in the University of Arizona Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

The group studied data from the rainforest habitat at UArizona's Biosphere 2 and compared them to measurements taken at natural tropical forest sites. Due to being encased under a glass dome, the tropical forest at Biosphere 2 is possibly the hottest tropical forest in the world, with temperatures reaching up to 40 degrees Celsius[104 F], about 6 C[10 F] higher than maximum temperatures currently experienced by natural tropical forests and in the range of what scientists expect them to experience in the year 2100, absent major climate change mitigation.

At Biosphere 2, when the effects of warming and drying were separated, the authors observed that, just as in natural forests, photosynthesis declined as the air dried, but when the air was wet, the trees continued to photosynthesize steadily at ever higher temperatures, right up to a forest-roasting 38 C[100 F].

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