Plants help in controlling the weather and climate ...
Forests Emerge as a Major Overlooked Climate Factor
New work at the intersection of atmospheric science and ecology is finding that forests can influence rainfall and climate from across a continent.
hen Abigail Swann started her career in the mid-2000s, she was one of just a handful of scientists exploring a potentially radical notion: that the green plants living on Earth’s surface could have a major influence on the planet’s climate. For decades, most atmospheric scientists had focused their weather and climate models on wind, rain and other physical phenomena.
But with powerful computer models that can simulate how plants move water, carbon dioxide and other chemicals between ground and air, Swann has found that vegetation can control weather patterns across huge distances. The destruction or expansion of forests on one continent might boost rainfall or cause a drought halfway around the world.
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