Get the latest tech news

With CO2 Levels Rising, Drylands Are Turning Green – Yale E360

Despite warnings that climate change would create widespread desertification, many drylands are getting greener because of increased CO2 in the air — a trend that recent studies indicate will continue. But scientists warn this added vegetation may soak up scarce water supplies.

Using a network of “flux towers” that measure the exchange of gases between vegetation and the air above, carbon-cycle researcher Trevor Keenan and colleagues concluded that since 1982 there had been a 12 percent increase in photosynthesis, with CO2 fertilization again the primary cause. They are important habitats for species uniquely adapted to scarce water, whether plants that can survive decades without rainfall or desert beetles that have evolved novel geometry on their bodies to harvest fog moisture. Long-term studies by University of California, Riverside in the Sonoran Desert show that shorter shrubs better adapted to less rainfall and higher temperatures are moving in at the expense of native plants, creating an impression of greening that marks an ecological breakdown.

Get the Android app