Scientists FLOOD the Biosphere 2’s self-contained tropical forest with CO2 in an experiment to see how climate change will impact plant life
- Researchers will examine what happens to stored CO2 in plants and trees
- CO2 is an important heat trapping gas that accelerates climate change
- Levels of the green house gas have risen by 24 percent since 1958
In Arizona, scientists have commenced a new six-week experiment to learn more about how climate change will effect rain forests.
The group of researchers, led by a physiologist from the University of Freiburg, flooded the Biosphere 2 with approximately $12,000 worth of carbon dioxide.
The spike in CO2 levels will be accompanied by a planned six week drought to test how the different trees and plants will manage their own stored CO2 levels under worsening climate change conditions.
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A group of researchers sealed the Biosphere 2 in Arizona and flooded it with carbon dioxide to test what will happen to the stored CO2 in rain forest trees and plants as climate change accelerates
Researchers have observed that as climate change has accelerated, droughts will become more frequent, which in turn could trigger even greater concentrations of CO2 gas to be released from plant life.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the environment that accelerates climate change.
‘You need these experiments to unlock the physiology and add it into the models,’ William Anderegg, one of the researchers, told Science Magazine.
‘It gets us much more mechanistic and rigorous projections of how tropical trees and forests might respond to climate change.’
The Biosphere 2 was originally built in the 1980s at a cost of more than $150 million
There are 90 different plant species currently living in the Biosphere 2
Trees absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and store it, and different species release it under different circumstances.
CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has risen by 24 percent since 1958.
Researchers are interested in testing what rain forest plantlife will do with its stored CO2 during drought or periods of spiking CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
The Biosphere 2 contains around 90 plant species similar to what could be found in a rain forest.
WHAT IS THE BIOSPHERE 2?
Biosphere 2 sits in the desert near Oracle, Ariz., in this 1991 photo
Biosphere 2 is a tightly sealed glass and steel structure on 3.15 acres near Oracle, Arizona in which scientists created seven complete ecosystems or biomes that mirror those of Earth.
The systems include an ocean, a desert, a savannah, a rainforest, a marsh, an area of intensive agriculture and a human habitat.
The project was designed to last for 100 years, providing valuable data for research and education to help scientists better understand how our world works.
On September 26, 1991, eight researchers, known as ‘biospherians,’ sealed the airlock on this massive enclosed ecological system – and Biosphere 2 was born.
However, they left their glass terrarium a quarter-century ago last month in two groups that no longer talked to each other amid the stress of sharing a small space and disputes over how the project should be run.
Detractors called the $150 million experiment a failure because additional oxygen was pumped into what was supposed to be a self-sustaining system.
Participants in the Biosphere 2 project, including Dr. Roy L. Walford, second from left, enter the enclosed facility near Oracle, Arizona, in this September 26, 1991
