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Subscribe to RSSGlobal warming is having a significant impact on hundreds of plant and animal species around the world, changing some breeding, migration and feeding patterns, the experts said in a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
Increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels can affect how plants produce oxygen, while higher temperatures and variable rainfall patterns can change their behavior.
"Predicting species' response to climate change is a major challenge in ecology," said researchers at the University of California San Diego and several other U.S. institutions.
They said plants had been the focus of study because their response to climate change could affect food chains and ecosystem services such as pollination, nutrient cycles and water supply.
The study draws on evidence from plant life cycle studies and experiments across four continents and 1,634 species. It found that some experiments had underestimated the speed of flowering by 8.5 times and growing leaves by 4 times.
"Across all species, the experiments under-predicted the magnitude of the advance -- for both leafing and flowering -- that results from temperature increases," the study said.
The design of future experiments may need to be improved to better predict how plants will react to climate change, it said.
Plants are the base of the food chain, using photosynthesis to produce sugar from carbon dioxide and water. They expel oxygen which is needed by nearly every organism which inhabits the planet.
Scientists estimate the world's average temperature has risen by about 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1900, and nearly 0.2 degrees per decade since 1979.
So far, efforts to cut emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases are not seen as sufficient to prevent the Earth heating up beyond 2 degrees C this century -- a threshold some scientists say risks an unstable climate in which weather extremes are common, leading to drought, floods, crop failures and rising sea levels.
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How do you ban law abiding citizens from their rights. The DEMS want to ban everything except pot.
So just how could a longer growing season be so devastating? They don't tell us because it is pure hype. Most, if not all, plants have a growing range, (just look on the back of a package of seeds), with varying blooming times and growth rates. All that will happen is that these areas will shift north, d'oh!
There were expressions of concerns of global warming even from advertisements from direct mailing lists (well they were green product companies lol)... I'd rather have slower growing crops than extreme weathers.
I am in no way a climate change skeptic. It is happening and we are certainly adding to it in a significant, measurable way. I AM skeptical however in the assertion that global warming is the sole product of human adtivity and that changes rendered therein are by definition devastating.
The planet has undergone global warming before (look up the term PETM) - in fact, several if not many times before. The biggest single difference this time is that we are around to see, experience and measure it. It might be that increased levels of CO2 and warmer temperatures are a boon to plant life. Changes in ecosystems are just that - changes - not devastation. Some species will suffer, but others will thrive and this is the way of evolution. We are capable of adding to the issue but, as a natural product of this planet that is to be expected.
That any change is automatically catastrophic is just panic. Fear of the unknown. Let's be good stewards of the planet. Let's preserve as much of our heritage as we can while inflicting as little damage as possible and realize that, no matter what we do, things will change. Sooner or later. Faster or slower. Change is the engine that drives diversity.
I am completely all for taking care of our environment, we have but one home in the 'Verse, and all for making sure that the sociopathic greed of the energy companies is kept in check as they'd use their families for profit if it was possible.
As CO2 increases in our atmosphere and the planets response is as noted and knowing that the as part of photosynthesis O2 is created (thusly increasing the O2 concentration), will we see animals on the scale from 300 million years ago when O2 was 35% back in the Carboniferous era? 3' long scorpions and skeeters the size of yardsticks would be an amazing sight!
The next question to ponder is would be seen ecological collapse like the CRC? If there would be, what would that outcome be and which species would be adversely impacted by the collapse?
Those questions aside, we completely need to tend to our only home. Nothing wants to live in an toxic outhouse.
Only the alarmists can turn something good for plants into something bad for the planet.
Plants grow faster and stronger with more CO2. Plants are more drought tolerant with more CO2. Plants are more water efficient with more CO2.