Plants drink up much of the water that falls to Earth. They take what they need before releasing it through tiny holes on the underside of their leaves, just as people release water vapor with every exhale.
How much a plant drinks and the rate at which it releases water, or transpires, depends partly on moisture levels in the air and soil. Global warming will shift this process more than previously predicted, according to new research from Stanford University.
Published June 1 in Nature Climate Change, the paper shows current climate models underestimate how severely plants ration their water use in response to dry air, and overestimate the effect of dry soil. The results suggest plants in many regions will lock away less water than expected during hot droughts in the future, leaving more water available to percolate into reservoirs, underground aquifers, rivers, lakes and streams.
“This is good news,” said study co-author Alexandra Konings, an assistant professor of Earth system science at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). Yet there is also a dark side to the findings: While water resources may be less diminished, plant growth and carbon uptake will likely suffer more than most models predict.
Read more at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences
Photo Credit: Devanath via Pixabay