The trees have spoken.... the trees don't lie. Trees are not political and they are not denialists.
Global warming causes trees to grow faster, say scientists
The pace at which some trees grow has speeded up dramatically over the past century thanks to global warming, according to a study.
Although Britain’s woodlands are threatened by diseases, rising temperatures and more carbon dioxide in the air are among the causes of a growth spurt in several widespread tree species, scientists in Germany have claimed.
The common beech is now growing 77 per cent faster than it was in 1960, while the Norwegian spruce’s growth rate has accelerated by 32 per cent.
Life scientists at the Technical University of Munich looked at 130 years’ worth of data taken from stands, or groups, of trees that are some of the oldest experimental plots in the world. Writing in the journal Nature Communications, they said that while the individual trees were growing much faster, there were fewer trees in each stand.
They put the growth down to a range of factors associated with climate change, including a longer growing season and shifts in the composition of the atmosphere. “Interestingly, we observed that acid rain only had a temporary slowing effect on the growth of our experimental plots,” said Professor Hans Pretzsch, who led the research.
In a paper published earlier this year, the researchers showed that two common species of oak, Quercus robur and Quercus petraea, were growing 37 per cent faster than they had been in 1960.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environme ... 211180.ece