Australian scientists have revealed the role that plants can play in saving the Earth from the disasters of climate change, due to their significant ability to absorb more carbon dioxide generated by human activities. The journal Science Advances indicates that "researchers have discovered that the current climate model used to predict the impacts of global warming forecasts increased carbon dioxide absorption by plants by the end of the 21st century, considering certain features of the photosynthesis process, such as the efficiency of carbon dioxide movement within leaves and how plants adapt to changes in temperature and nutrient distribution."
Carbon fixation during photosynthesis acts as a natural mechanism to mitigate climate change. It has been announced that "carbon absorption has increased due to the rising concentration of carbon dioxide over the past decades. However, it was unclear how plants would respond to carbon dioxide, temperature, and rainfall levels that would be different from what we observe today." Scientists believe that "severe droughts and heat may significantly weaken the ability of terrestrial ecosystems to absorb."
Researchers studied various climate models and found that "the simplest model ignored three important physiological mechanisms related to the photosynthesis process, while the more complex model considered all three mechanisms and showed a significant increase in carbon absorption by plants worldwide. These three mechanisms complement each other, exceeding the simple sum of the effects considered individually."
Researchers point out that "planting trees alone will not solve all the problems associated with rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so it is essential to reduce emissions resulting from human activity."
