Untitled Document
 By
now, we have all heard how climate change negatively affects our environment. Ice in the Arctic
is melting at a rapid rate, sea water
levels are rising, the planet is getting warmer…the consequences are
endless. However, there’s good news! Scientists in California in the
United States have recently announced that climate change
is helping the world’s tallest trees!
Since 2009, the scientists have studied the ancient redwoods and giant sequoias,
trees that are native to Northern California. The scientists wanted
to study the growth patterns of the trees so they extracted cores from 78 trees.
They used the tree rings to find the age
of each tree. The scientists discovered that some of the redwoods
have been alive since the year 328. Some of the giant sequoias also
went as far back as the year 474. This may seem surprising, but both
of these trees can live for thousands of years!
The thing that surprised the scientists was the tree’s annual growth rate. During
the past few decades of climate change, both trees have been getting
larger! The fastest-growing tree added 1.6 cubic meters of wood every
year! Thus, the scientists concluded that these ancient
trees are benefitting from global warming. They believe that rising
temperatures have lengthened the growing season for the giant sequoias.
For the redwoods, they have benefitted from less fog along the Northern
California coast.
In addition, the scientists discovered that the trees absorb three times more carbon dioxide than other
trees in the forest. That’s because the greater the wood volume increases,
the larger the amount of carbon the trees can absorb. The scientists
also found the oldest redwood tree ever discovered: it is 2,520 years
old! |
Staff
reporter Jessica Kim
(jessicakim@timescore.co.kr) |
|
|
|
