Some tropical forests show surprising resilience as temperatures rise

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The world’s hottest rainforest is located not in the Amazon or anywhere else you might expect, but inside Biosphere 2, the experimental scientific research facility in the desert outside Tucson, Arizona. A recent study of tropical trees planted there in the early 1990s reported a surprising result: They have withstood temperatures higher than any likely to be experienced by tropical forests this century.

The study adds to a growing tally of findings that are giving forest scientists something that’s been in short supply lately: hope. Plants may have unexpected resources that could help them survive—and perhaps even thrive—in a hotter, more carbon-rich future. And while tropical forests still face both human and natural threats, some researchers believe dire reports of their impending decline due to climate change may have been exaggerated.

Temperatures inside Biosphere 2 exceed what even the Amazon—the world’s hottest tropical rainforest—is expected to see this century. In such sweltering conditions, plants in previous open-air studies have almost shut down photosynthesis, the biochemical process plants use to turn carbon dioxide into simple sugars they use for energy.

“Biology is ingenious,” says Scott Saleska, an ecologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson and co-leader of the Biosphere 2 study. “It’s a lot more ingenious than our models yet represent.”

Source

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Some ecossystems love the hotter temperature, other suffer a lot with it. Th higher amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is good for crops, but how about the balance of all the ecossystems?

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Ah yes, the Katyprint 😌

 

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No one is afraid warming temps will kill trees 

Humans don’t need to wait on the climate to decimate forests, unfortunately.