Plants have little ability to adapt to changing climates. If temperatures continue their rapid rise over the next 100 years, all plant species will be affected in some way. Growing seasons, rainfall patterns, storms and cycles of floods and droughts are all predicted to change as global warming worsens. In fact, some of these climate changes are already occurring.
Scientists say that warming temperatures are causing rapid changes in the range and distribution of plants worldwide. On the slopes of high mountains, glacial meadows are being replaced with sagebrush as temperatures warm. In the Arctic, fast-growing trees are expanding northward, extending into areas that until recently were tundra. In the next 100 years, global warming is expected to reduce the world's tundra by 30 percent, with lethal consequences for species that live there.
A doubling of CO2 in our atmosphere, which scientists expect to occur midway through this century, will have a drastic impact on our forests. The stunning colors of fall foliage in New England will become a thing of the past as it becomes too warm for sugar maples to survive. A doubling of CO2 would also shift the growing range for birch, hemlock and beech trees 300 to 600 miles northward, leaving behind huge swaths of dead and dying trees.
Plants have little ability to adapt to changing climates. If temperatures continue their rapid rise over the next 100 years, all plant species will be affected in some way. Growing seasons, rainfall patterns, storms and cycles of floods and droughts are all predicted to change as global warming worsens. In fact, some of these climate changes are already occurring.
Scientists say that warming temperatures are causing rapid changes in the range and distribution of plants worldwide. On the slopes of high mountains, glacial meadows are being replaced with sagebrush as temperatures warm. In the Arctic, fast-growing trees are expanding northward, extending into areas that until recently were tundra. In the next 100 years, global warming is expected to reduce the world's tundra by 30 percent, with lethal consequences for species that live there.
A doubling of CO2 in our atmosphere, which scientists expect to occur midway through this century, will have a drastic impact on our forests. The stunning colors of fall foliage in New England will become a thing of the past as it becomes too warm for sugar maples to survive. A doubling of CO2 would also shift the growing range for birch, hemlock and beech trees 300 to 600 miles northward, leaving behind huge swaths of dead and dying trees.