Can anyone help me with a short outline on global warming effects on plants???

Question

Can anyone help me with a short outline on global warming effects on plants???

Answer 1

wow are you a genius?

Answer 2

You did say "short" didn't you? (Not a huge copy and paste most of which had little to do with plants!)

OK, short:

Increased CO2 concentrations has very little impact

Climate change means some areas (sub-tropics) become less hospitable to plants (many areas becoming deserts) whereas other areas (temperate zones) become more suited to plants

Increased sea levels flood some areas reducing plant growth as does increased salinity of the soil in coastal areas evewn if they don't flood

On average, rainfall around the globe will increase as will the length of growing seasons in high latitudes, encouraging plant growth. In some cases, plants will move from flowering and producing seeds once per year to twice per year.

The big BUT in all this is that nearly all climates will change; even where they become more favourable to plant life in general, the plants already there will find the climate less favourable - is there enough time for the plants to adapt or eveolve? Is there enough time (and mechanisms) for different existing species to move in?

The answer, unfortunately, is no.

Currently, approximately 50,000 species (animal and plant) become extinct each year - this is 1,000X times the normal rate: Change is simply happening too quickly for plants (and animals) to adapt or evolve so the net long-term effect of GW on plants is a drastic decrease in the number of species although total plant bio-mass may stay somewhat constant (greater number of the few species that do survive).

Answer 3

the effects of global warming are

Top 10 Global Warming Effects

Tuesday, 28 August 2007

You've probably heard about the global warming song and dance: rising temperatures, melting ice caps and rising sea

levels in the near future. But Earth's changing climate is already wreaking havoc in some very weird ways. So gird

yourself for such strange effects as savage wildfires, disappearing lakes, and freak allergies. Every single one of these is

already occurring.

10. Aggravated Allergies Have those sneeze attacks and itchy eyes that plague you every spring been worsening in

recent years? If so, global warming may be partly to blame. Over the past few decades, more and more Americans have

started suffering from seasonal allergies and asthma. Though lifestyle changes and pollution ultimately leave people

more vulnerable to the airborne allergens they breathe in, research has shown that the higher carbon dioxide levels and

warmer temperatures associated with global warming are also playing a role by prodding plants to bloom earlier and

produce more pollen. With more allergens produced earlier, allergy season can last longer. Get those tissues ready. 9.

Heading for the Hills Starting in the early 1900s, we've all had to look to slightly higher ground to spot our favorite

chipmunks, mice and squirrels. Researchers found that many of these animals have moved to greater elevations,

possibly due to changes in their habitat caused by global warming. Similar changes to habitats are also threatening Arctic

species like polar bears, as the sea ice they dwell on gradually melts away. 8. Arctic in Bloom While melting in the Arctic

might cause problems for plants and animals at lower latitudes, it's creating a downright sunny situation for Arctic biota.

Arctic plants usually remain trapped in ice for most of the year. Nowadays, when the ice melts earlier in the spring, the

plants seem to be eager to start growing. Research has found higher levels of the form of the photosynthesis product

chlorophyll in modern soils than in ancient soils, showing a biological boom in the Arctic in recent decades. 7. Pulling the

Plug A whopping 125 lakes in the Arctic have disappeared in the past few decades, backing up the idea that global

warming is working fiendishly fast nearest Earth's poles. Research into the whereabouts of the missing water points to

the probability that permafrost underneath the lakes thawed out. When this normally permanently frozen ground thaws,

the water in the lakes can seep through the soil, draining the lake--one researcher likened it to pulling the plug out of the

bathtub. When the lakes disappear, the ecosystems they support also lose their home. 6. The Big Thaw Not only is the

planet's rising temperature melting massive glaciers, but it also seems to be thawing out the layer of permanently frozen

soil below the ground's surface. This thawing causes the ground to shrink and occurs unevenly, so it could lead to sink

holes and damage to structures such as railroad tracks, highways and houses. The destabilizing effects of melting

permafrost at high altitudes, for example on mountains, could even cause rockslides and mudslides. 5. Survival of the

Fittest As global warming brings an earlier start to spring, the early bird might not just get the worm. It might also get its

genes passed on to the next generation. Because plants bloom earlier in the year, animals that wait until their usual time

to migrate might miss out on all the food. Those who can reset their internal clocks and set out earlier stand a better

chance at having offspring that survive and thus pass on their genetic information, thereby ultimately changing the

genetic profile of their entire population 4. Speedier Satellites A primary cause of a warmer planet--carbon dioxide

emissions--is having effects that reach into space with a bizarre twist. Air in the atmosphere's outermost layer is very

thin, but air molecules still create drag that slows down satellites, requiring engineers to periodically boost them back into

their proper orbits. But the amount of carbon dioxide up there is increasing. And while carbon dioxide molecules in the

lower atmosphere release energy as heat when they collide, thereby warming the air, the sparser molecules in the upper

atmosphere collide less frequently and tend to radiate their energy away, cooling the air around them. With more carbon

dioxide up there, more cooling occurs, causing the air to settle. So the atmosphere is less dense and creates less drag.

3. Rebounding Mountains Though the average hiker wouldn't notice, the Alps and other mountain ranges have

experienced a gradual growth spurt over the past century or so thanks to the melting of the glaciers atop them. For

thousands of years, the weight of these glaciers has pushed against the Earth's surface, causing it to depress. As the

glaciers melt, this weight is lifting, and the surface slowly is springing back. Because global warming speeds up the

melting of these glaciers, the mountains are rebounding faster. 2. Ruined Ruins All over the globe, temples, ancient

settlements and other artifacts stand as monuments to civilizations past that until now have withstood the tests of time.

But the immediate effects of global warming may finally do them in. Rising seas and more extreme weather have the

potential to damage irreplaceable sites. Floods attributed to global warming have already damaged a 600-year-old site,

Sukhothai, which was once the capital of a Thai kingdom. {sidebar id=2 align=right} 1. Forest Fire Frenzy

While it's melting glaciers and creating more intense hurricanes, global warming also seems to be heating up forest fires

in the United States. In western states over the past few decades, more wildfires have blazed across the countryside,

burning more area for longer periods of time. Scientists have correlated the rampant blazes with warmer temperatures

and earlier snowmelt. When spring arrives early and triggers an earlier snowmelt, forest areas become drier and stay so

for longer, increasing the chance that they might ignite.

DB: This is Earth and Sky. We’ve been speaking with John Harte, an ecologist at the University of California at Berkeley.

JB: He and his colleagues wanted to know how an increase in air temperature would affect plants and soils in a sub–alpine meadow in rural Colorado. For the past 14 years, they’ve used heaters to artificially warm several plots of land in the meadow by two degrees Celsius.

DB: In the heated plots, flowering plants are being replaced by sagebrush – a woody shrub that can tolerate more heat and dryness. Sagebrush doesn’t store carbon in the soil as well as flowering plants. So that leaves more carbon in the air in the form of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

JB: So an increase in sagebrush could ultimately lead to more heat trapped by Earth’s atmosphere – and a further temperature rise. Also, sagebrush leaves absorb more sunlight than the leaves of flowering plants. According to Dr. Harte, both of these feedbacks can make Earth warmer.

John Harte: My current belief – based not just on my experiments now but other people’s as well – is that our current global warming models are probably underestimating the magnitude of future warming because they ignore these ecological feedbacks.

DB: Our thanks to the National Science Foundation – where discoveries begin. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.

Harte and his colleagues are heating a patch of flowering sub alpine meadow in Colorado that’s about 1500 square feet in size – or about the size of a house.

So far, the shift from flowering plants to sagebrush has meant that less and less carbon is being stored in the soil. But Harte predicts that in the next 10 years, carbon levels in the soil should come back up as more and more sagebrush matter builds up and breaks down. So the positive feedback of carbon storage should eventually turn into a negative feedback. He hopes to be studying these plots long enough to see that take place.

I asked John Harte why sagebrush absorbs more sunlight than flowering plants. He wrote: “During dry times, often in mid to late summer, sagebrush foliage grows grayer (lighter in color) which is probably an adaptation to reduce solar absorption. But in spring and early summer it is darker than other vegetation in the community and thus absorbs more solar energy. Also, being an evergreen shrub, the dark overwintering foliage sticks out above a shallow snow cover in mid to late spring, promoting earlier snowmelt around it.”

Excerpts from an interview with John Harte:

ES: What does this research imply about how plants and ecosystems will react to a warming world?

I think it implies that if you drive through the Rocky Mountains or the Sierras or … or the Andes in midsummer, you see carpets of gorgeous flowers everywhere. ...

Up in the mountains, these plants are adapted evolutionarily to short growing seasons, intense amounts of snow melt occurring in late spring. And then they’re adapted to summers with the occasional thunderstorm and short growing season and then fall comes early. Early frosts. Often there can be an early frost in August. So this is the climate they’ve been adapted to. And now they’re being put – these Rocky Mountain populations – are being put into a climate under our heaters and in the future to a climate under global warming. And it turns out they’re not as well adapted to that as their competitors such as the sagebrush. And some of the grasses. So what we project is that the alpine and sub alpine meadows that are carpeted with beautiful flowers will not be so 50 years from now. Those regions will look a lot more like what you see when you drive through the hilly country in Nevada where you see creosote bush and sagebrush and w

Answer 4

Well Global Warming doesn't really effect plants. It just gives plants more heat. Global Warming mostly effects on people and plants. There are many ways to stop Global Warming. Here are a list of ways, stop using so many fossil fuels because it gives out more greenhouse gases which is not good, and stop cutting down trees because it fills carbon dioxide in the air and trees give out oxygen which people need.

Answer 5

well some plants could adapt and some plants won't. Increase in co2 in the air would help some plants grow faster and some won't benifet at all. What you should be doing is refining your question to a specific group of plants so you have less to answer!