A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences challenges the expectation that warming always increases nitrogen loss from forest soils. The research began as a collaboration led by the University of California, Riverside with graduate students and postdoctoral researchers based in Shenyang City, China. Teams worked for six years at a forest site in Qingyuan County and collected more than 200,000 gas measurements from the soil.
To simulate climate change, the team used infrared heaters above forest plots to raise temperatures by 2°C (3.6°F). They fitted six forest plots, each 108 square metres, with automated chambers that opened and sealed to measure gas levels. The high-resolution data showed that in drier conditions warming reduced emissions: nitric oxide fell 19% and nitrous oxide fell 16%.
Researchers found a moisture threshold near 1,000 millimetres of rain per year. In wetter forests warming increased nitrogen loss. The lead researchers warned that climate models that ignore soil moisture miss an important factor.
Difficult words
- challenge — to question or disagree with a beliefchallenges
- expectation — a belief about what will likely happen
- simulate — to copy conditions of something in experiments
- emission — gas released into air from soil or plantsemissions
- threshold — a level where conditions start to change
- moisture — small amount of water in soil or air
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Discussion questions
- Do you think climate models should include soil moisture? Why or why not?
- How might the study’s finding about drier conditions affect how we manage forests under climate change?
- Have you seen local weather or soil changes that could change gas emissions in nearby parks or forests? Describe what you noticed.
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