Research Examines How Changes in Plant Life Contribute to Climate Change
Image by Pixabay
09/30/2024
By Brooke Coupal
Climate change is impacting the world around us.
The long-term shift in weather patterns has resulted in hotter temperatures, rising sea levels and the loss of wildlife. It has affected agriculture and human health. It has played a role in increasing extreme weather events, from droughts to extreme precipitation.聽
Climate change has also led to physical changes in plant life, and those changes, in turn, exacerbate climate change.
鈥淚t鈥檚 this whole cycle,鈥� says聽Christopher Skinner, assistant professor in the聽Department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences聽(EEAS). 鈥淎s the climate changes, the vegetation itself starts to change in a lot of different ways, and each one of those ways can then cause further climate change.鈥�
Skinner is partnering with EEAS Prof.聽Mathew Barlow聽to develop a better understanding of how changes in vegetation, such as wild dune grass and towering oak trees, contribute to climate change. The National Science Foundation is funding their research with a grant worth nearly $400,000.
Image by Brooke Coupal
The researchers are focusing on three vegetation changes influenced by climate change, the first being changes in the plant鈥檚 life cycle. Climate change has caused leaves to emerge prematurely, which results in plants drawing water out of the ground earlier than they did before.
鈥淭his affects the soil moisture and can influence extreme weather events such as heat waves and precipitation,鈥� Skinner says.
Skinner and Barlow are also looking into carbon dioxide (CO2) fertilization, in which the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere causes plants to grow faster and bigger. This results in the plants drawing more water out of the ground, which also affects soil moisture.
Contrarily, the increase in the atmosphere鈥檚 CO2 can lead to increased water use efficiency, in which plants do not need as much water to sustain their growth. This can leave the ground saturated, promoting flooding during heavy rains.
鈥淲e suspect that changes to the seasonal timing and amount of vegetation can have an important impact on the risk of several types of extreme events, including wildfires, drought, flooding and heat waves,鈥� Barlow says. 鈥淭his project will enable us to get a much clearer picture of those relationships.鈥�
Image by Brooke Coupal
鈥淲e鈥檙e designing model experiments where we can tease out those individual effects and quantify them to understand how they鈥檙e influencing climate,鈥� Skinner says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the novel piece of what we鈥檙e doing 鈥� coming up with a way to isolate these three vegetation processes.鈥�
The researchers are involving students in the project, giving them experience with climate models.聽Earth System Science聽Ph.D. student Ali Fallah 鈥�23 has already dived in.
鈥淰egetation processes are so complex,鈥� he says. 鈥淯nderstanding changes in vegetation will make for better predictions of future climate and extreme events.鈥�
Skinner echoed Fallah.
鈥淭he hope is we can identify what vegetation processes are most important, so we can refine these models and come to a greater understanding of the future climate,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e narrowing the uncertainty of the future.鈥�
