Global Warming Stimulates Then Stunts Plant Growth - KNAU Arizona Public Radio

Composite of the ecosystems, arranged left to right in order of increasing elevation: Great Basin desert, high desert grassland, grassy interspace in pinyon-juniper woodland, meadow in ponderosa pine forest, and meadow in mixed conifer forest.

Paul Dijkstra and Michael Allwright

Global warming makes plants grow greener, but not for long.  That’s according to new research out of Northern Arizona University published this week in Nature Climate Change.  

For the last decade NAU researchers have studied the effect of climate change on Northern Arizona ecosystems.  Their recent findings reveal that while warmer conditions made plants grow more, it also stunted plant growth over time.

The result is a loss of native species and encroachment by plants normally found in warmer environments.

And those results raise some significant questions for NAU Biology Professor Bruce Hungate. 

He wonders how plant ecosystems will work in a warmer world. 

Will they slow global climate change…..or speed it up.

"The message from our work is don’t be fooled by the short term results to making things a little warmer," Hungate says. "They might like it at first and as plants grow more they may store more carbon.  But over time, nearly a decade, that response went away."

Hungate says his research shows we can’t rely on natural ecosystems to slow or repair the effects of climate change.