“Trees, crucial absorbers of climate-harming carbon dioxide gas, may finally be balking at an ever-earlier spring season brought on by global warming, researchers said Wednesday.

“Over the past several decades, trees across central Europe have been steadily sprouting their spring leaves earlier in response to warmer temperatures, they said.

“As a result, forests absorbed more carbon dioxide in a longer growing season—a boon that has been worked into global warming projections.

“But a study published in the science journal Nature said trees have slowed their pace of seasonal advance—raising fears it may stop altogether.

“The slowdown “suggests a current and possible future weakening of forests’ carbon uptake due to the declining temperature sensitivity of (trees),” lead author Yongshuo Fu of Peking University in Beijing told AFP.”  Read more at: phys.org

GR:  This is one of those “point of no return” stories.  If forests indeed begin absorbing less CO2, preservation and reforestation will have less benefit than hoped.  This will accelerate global warming.  Nevertheless, forests are the essential homes of many of Earth’s plant and animal species.  We must continue lobbying for the end of deforestation.

See on Scoop.it – GarryRogers NatCon News