UM research shows plants
flourishing from global warming By BETSY COHEN of the Missoulian
The Earth is becoming a greener and
wetter place to live, according to NASA-funded researchers at
the University of Montana who have studied global climate
changes for the past two decades.
The work of UM-based
scientists Ramakrishna Nemani and Steve Running is highlighted
in Friday's edition of Science magazine, the world's premiere
science journal.
Nemani and Running's work is part of a
collaboration with scientists at the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography, the University of California-San Diego, Boston
University and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Maryland.
"We have been working in this field
almost 20 years, and this study brings together everything we
have done in that time - it really is a summary of our work,"
said Nemani, the lead researcher for the project.
What
makes their findings so exciting is that for the first time,
scientists have a global picture of what is happening to
climate and vegetation, he said.
Although scientists
know from a number of small-scale studies over the last few
years that the planet is getting greener, there hasn't been a
planetwide look at climate changes until now.
Nemani
said he isn't so startled by the findings, but is pleasantly
surprised that his homeland is faring well.
"I come
from India, it was nice to see the subcontinent has done quite
well in the last two decades," he said. "I wasn't expecting
that."
The information the scientists used for their
article, titled "Climate-Driven Increases in Global
Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 1982 to 1999," comes
from data collected by satellites and from worldwide local
weather records, Running said.
They determined how
factors such as rising temperatures, altered precipitation
patterns and increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have
affected plant growth.
They concluded that vegetation
growth increased 6 percent over extensive regions of Earth,
with the largest increase in tropical ecosystems. Amazon
rainforests accounted for 42 percent of the global increase,
due mostly to decreased cloud cover and the resulting increase
in solar radiation.
For Running, the findings are
welcome news he believes the larger, nonscientific world will
appreciate.
"Most of the press, you read about global
warming is bad news, and I think the public has gotten
accustomed to whenever the issue comes up they think gloom and
doom," Running said. "I think this will help lift people's
spirits.
"Everyone will agree that improved vegetation
means more resources for humanity to work with."
NASA
announced the news Thursday at a splashy press conference
complete with videos and graphics to illustrate the
findings.
Running said he was surprised by the fanfare,
but welcomes the attention. His lab, he said, has been
hammering away at climate studies for a long time and the work
is now paying off with information that people around the
globe will find useful.
"This is a fairly major step
forward in how we understand Earth's system and how climate
interacts with Earth's biosphere," he said. "The better we
understand these changes, the better we can react and work
with them.
"Locally, it may help us make decisions on
things like how to expand agriculture in Montana," he said. "I
have been watching wine regions expand in different parts of
the world - there's an active winery in British Columbia, and
20 years ago they didn't, wouldn't, have one.
"I think
this research gives us a better understanding of where we
should be reconsidering certain aspects of land
management."
