BDN shares Olsen study about tropical forests mitigating climate change
The Bangor Daily News reported on a study led by Amanda Olsen, associate professor at the School of Earth and Climate Sciences at the University of Maine, that showed tropical forests can mitigate climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turning it into plant biomass through photosynthesis. The study also showed that as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, some forests may not be able to sequester more of it because their habitats lack sufficient supplies of nutrients. “Climate models assume that a certain percentage of carbon dioxide will be taken in by plants as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to rise. However, if other nutrients limit ecosystems’ abilities to grow more or larger plants, the ability of plants to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be less than we are currently predicting. This is why understanding whether rocks can provide some of those nutrients is key to understanding how much carbon dioxide tropical forests can take up in the future,” Olsen said.