Extreme Weather Events Fuel Climate Change: Drought Impacts the Carbon Cycle

Extreme weather events can sweep across our globe, greatly impacting climates and areas where they occur. Now, scientists have examined how sweltering heat and drought can have future effects, and they've discovered that these extreme weather events can help fuel climate change.

In 2003, Central and Southern Europe suffered from a massive heatwave. Drought cracked the ground as scientists documented exactly how these conditions affected the carbon cycle. Yet in order to better understand how these types of events might impact climate overall, the researchers had to look into the past. They examined satellite images from 1982 to 2011 in order to determine how much biomass was in various ecosystems. More specifically, they determined how much light plants in an area absorb so they can perform photosynthesis. In addition, the scientists used data from a global network of 500 stations, which record carbon dioxide concentrations and air currents in the atmosphere.

After collecting the data, the scientists they fed the various readings into complex computer models. This allowed them to calculate the global effect of extreme weather on the carbon balance. In the end, the scientists found that the effect is extreme; on average, vegetation absorbs 11 billion fewer tons of carbon dioxide than it would in a climate that doesn't experience extremes.

Needless to say, this could lead to major impacts to our global climate. Climate scientists believe that droughts, heat waves, storms and heavy rain could all become more pronounced in the future due to climate change. This means that there would be more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a result. This, in turn, would exacerbate weather issues.

Currently, the scientists are planning to continue investigations into the consequences of extreme weather events. For example, they want to examine the way the different ecosystems respond in laboratory and field experiments.

"These experiments have already been carried out, but mostly they only look at extreme events which occur once in a 100 years," said Michael Bahn, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We should also take account of events which so far have only happened in 1,000 or even 10,000 years, because they are likely to become much more frequent towards the end of this centry."

The findings are important for understanding future changes to our climate. In addition, they show how far-reaching extreme weather events can be.

The findings are published in the journal Nature.