EARTH IS GREENER DUE TO
WARMING.
By REBECCA SMITH.
197 words
Mirror
22
English
(c) 2003 Mirror Group
Ltd
GLOBAL warming is making
plants grow better, scientists said yesterday.
Vegetation
over large areas of the earth increased by six per cent between 1982 and
1999.
The Amazon rainforest grew massively - making up 42 per cent of
the overall increase across the globe.
The lush growth is thought to be
mainly due to less cloud cover and more sunshine, said researchers led by
Ramakrishna Nemani from the
They wrote in journal Science: "Our results
indicate that global changes in climate have eased several critical climatic
constraints to plant growth, such that the net primary production increased six
per cent globally." The scientists wanted to see how changes in our climate,
including rising temperatures, different rainfall patterns and more carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, might affect vegetation.
They found that tropical
areas had the biggest plant growth over the 17 year period studied.
Vegetation acts as "carbon sinks" because it absorbs greenhouse gas carbon
dioxide, which itself is said to contribute towards global warming.
But it
is not clear if the extra plant growth is affecting the storage of carbon on the
Earth.