Climate change 'lifts tree growth' - 02/02/10

Climate change has accelerated the overall growth rate of trees, a new study has revealed.

Researchers led by ecologist Geoffrey Parker, from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Centre in Maryland, claim that trees are growing at a faster rate than at any time in the past 225 years.

They attributed the speedy growth to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, higher temperatures and longer growing seasons.

The researchers tracked the growth of 55 stands of mixed hardwood forest plots in Maryland for two decades and found that a particular forest was producing an additional 1.8 tonnes of timber per acre annually.

According to the findings published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers monitored the growth of trees in stands that range from five to 225 years old and found more than nine in 10 stands grew two to four times faster than predicted.

The researchers showed that the faster growth is a recent phenomenon by grouping the stands by age.

Mr Parker said: "We made a list of reasons why these forests could be growing faster and then ruled half of them out."

He added that the best explanation for the accelerated growth was a response to climate change.

Climate change 'lifts tree growth' - 02/02/10

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