Even Modest Climate Change May Lead to Sweeping Changes in Northernmost Forests
Published:10 Aug.2022 Source:University of Michigan
Even relatively modest climate warming and associated precipitation shifts may dramatically alter Earth's northernmost forests, which constitute one of the planet's largest nearly intact forested ecosystems and are home to a big chunk of the planet's terrestrial carbon.
That's the main finding from a unique five-year experiment, led by a University of Michigan ecologist, that used infrared lamps and soil heating cables to study the projected impacts of near-term climate change on thousands of seedlings from nine tree species found in far northern forests, which are known as boreal forests.