CO2 Emissions Greening Vast Parts of the World
The ongoing accumulation of carbon dioxide from nearly two centuries of greenhouse gas emissions appears to be responsible for a recent greening of the world’s vast drylands.
Scientists from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis say they believe higher CO2 levels have increased the amount of water in drylands soil, while also diminishing the ability of some plants to exchange carbon dioxide and water vapor in and out of their leaves.
"We know from satellite observations that vegetation is greener than it was in the past," lead researcher Lixin Wang said in a press release. "We now understand why that's occurring, but we don't necessarily know if that's a good thing or not.”
Drylands are the world’s most abundant landscapes, where evaporation exceeds the amount of rainfall received by at least a third.
They are also home to more than 2 billion of the world’s human inhabitants and cover 41.3 percent of Earth's land surface.
A view of crops and fields in a mountainous drylands region of Morocco.
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