Impact of Temperature Change on Plant Growth and Ecosystems

Plant growth and health may benefit from increased temperatures of global warming in that some regions will experience reduced incidence of damage from freezing and chilling. Plants in other regions may suffer from stress due to elevated temperatures. There is some evidence that extreme events (droughts, floods, high winds, etc.) may accompany global warming, in which case plants may experience isolated highly damaging events.

NPP will generally be increased by moderate increases in temperature estimated to occur in the next 60 years, especially in boreal and mid-latitude regions. Estimates are that NPP will increase 1% per degree C in regions where the mean annual temperature is 30 degrees C and 10% in regions where the mean annual temperature is 0 degrees C. Crop yield will be discussed in a future lecture, but the result is that the regions of reduced yields are reasonably balanced by regions of yield gain.

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