Tropical forests may be more resilient to climate change than previously thought

Nature : Previous climate studies had predicted that rising temperatures due to global warming would cause the drying out and eventual destruction of rainforests in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. A recent study , however, has found that trees may be more resilient than previously thought. Using new data and improved modeling, an international team of researchers compared results from 22 different global climate models. “In all but one simulation, rainforests across the three regions retained their carbon stocks even as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration increased throughout the century,” writes Olive Heffernan for Nature. Carbon dioxide can act as an airborne fertilizer, boosting plant growth and counteracting the negative effects of increased emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Nevertheless, other effects of a changing climate could still damage the trees, such as an increasing number of extreme weather events.