Heatwave makes plants warm planet

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The really surprising finding came with the calculation that during the heatwave, European plants and their ecosystems were putting more carbon dioxide into the air than they were absorbing. "In the past we expected that climate change would benefit European ecosystems because growth tends to be limited by the short growing season," said Andrew Friend, "but this analysis hadn't taken into account the possibility of extreme events. "The conclusion of our study is that this extreme event meant a loss of carbon across Europe - a loss which undoes many years of net uptake." ... During an average year, the net effect is that European plants absorb around 125 million tonnes of carbon (MtC). But in 2003, according to this analysis, they released 500 MtC to the atmosphere. By comparison, global emissions from burning fossil fuels amounts to about 7,000 MtC; by giving rather than taking, European plants were adding about 10% to the global total. "This shows that short-term climatic events such as the 2003 heatwave occurring over regional areas like Europe can have major effects on the climate globally," commented Julia Slingo.