| Climate change may result in average UK river levels increasing in future
The findings, published on 30 August 2007 in the journal Nature, suggest that increasing carbon dioxide will cause plants to extract less water from the soil, leaving more water to drain into rivers which will add to the river flow increases already expected due to climate change. Last year, members of the research team showed that this effect can already be seen in historical river flow records. This new study, led by Dr Richard Betts, Climate Impacts Scientist at the Met Office Hadley Centre, shows that the effect of plant responses to carbon dioxide could be as important as those of increased rainfall due to man-made climate change. The predictions are likely to be both good news and bad news. "It's a double-edged sword," said Dr Betts. "It means that increases in drought due to climate change could be less severe as plants lose less water. On the other hand, if the land is saturated more often, you might expect that intense rainfall events are more likely to cause flooding". Dr Betts, a lead author on the recent IPCC report, added that this effect also makes it more difficult to compare carbon dioxide with other greenhouse gases which do not affect plants in the same way. "We often hear about the CO2 equivalent of other gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, used in calculating carbon footprints. But this only accounts for the effect of these gases on global warming. If we want to compare their full impacts on droughts and flooding, we need to consider direct effects on plants too".
•Date: 31st Aug 2007• Region: UK •Type: Article •Topic: DR general
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