Climate change is turning trees into gluttons

Washington: The findings of new research have shown just how much the forests have been bulking up on that excess carbon.

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The study, recently published in the Journal Nature Communications, finds that elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased the wood volume - or the biomass - of forests in the United States.

Although other factors like climate and pests can somewhat affect a tree's volume, the study found that elevated carbon levels consistently led to an increase in wood volume in 10 different temperate forest groups across the country. This suggests that trees are helping to shield Earth's ecosystem from the impacts of global warming through their rapid growth.

"Forests are taking carbon out of the atmosphere at a rate of about 13per cent of our gross emissions," said Brent Sohngen, co-author of the study and professor of environmental and resource economics at The Ohio State University. "While we're putting billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we're actually taking much of it out just by letting our forests grow."

This phenomenon is called carbon fertilization: An influx of carbon dioxide increases a plant's rate of photosynthesis, which combines energy from the sun, water, and nutrients from the ground and air to produce fuel for life and spurs plant growth.