How plants can help fight climate change? According to a new study, the climate change models do not accredit plants enough for absorbing the carbon dioxide from the air. Earth’s plant life absorbs more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than the amount suggested by earlier researches. In addition, the burned fossil fuels are also a major source of artificial CO2 emissions. This raises a question of whether trees are actually saving the world from us. Are we contributing to its deterioration faster than the forests are saving it, or if it’s the other way around? It is a fifth grade science fact, that plants need CO2 for photosynthesis. However, the current CO2 cycles estimated from computer models do not account for the CO2 that directly diffuses into a leaf’s mesophyll tissue. This has caused researches and models to underestimate the overall global CO2 intake by the plants, by as much as 16 percent. This does not reduce the urgency to deal with the fossil fuel CO2 emissions as the climatic change associated to CO2 emissions is way greater than the CO2 absorption. The study was not conducted to make climatic forecasts, but its motive was to redefine the older models. This is because geo-scientists inter-relate every earthly system to evaluate the overall scenarios. The CO2 isnt even the only factor in the process of plant growth; water and nutrient limitations also play a role, which sometimes offsets the benefits of CO2. However, when extra CO2 does boost growth, the additionally absorbed carbonreturns into the air. Martin Heimann, the director of the biogeochemical systems research at Germany’s Max Planck Institute, says that an additional step in the photosynthesis has not been incorporated in the current models. This process increases the uptake potential of the land biosphere for any excess CO2. An exact estimate of how fast the CO2 is emitted or absorbed is not possible at all. Hence an exact estimate of the speed of deterioration of the atmosphere cannot be determined. This is because we do not know the evolution of the emissions, not because of uncertainties of the carbon cycle. Even if CO2 uptake by plants is increased, the CO2 emissions are not slowing down. Hence, the atmospheric decay would continue. Wild plants are our key allies in making the civilization sustainable. We should focus on protecting them and increasing their plantations because reducing CO2 emissions could be a very tedious task, considering that fossil fuels are burned in all industrial processes.
Related Article: http://www.researchomatic.com/photosynthesis-181570.html