Improving global warming predictions

University of Iowa researchers and their colleagues have found a way to improve existing estimates of the amount of carbon absorbed by plants from the air, thereby improving the accuracy of global warming and land cover change estimates, according to a paper published in the Nov. 13 issue of the journal Science.

By knowing the effects of plants on the atmosphere, scientists will be better able to determine the amount of human-generated carbon dioxide injected into the atmosphere.

###

Contact: Greg Carmichael,
professor of chemical and biochemical engineering in the UI College of Engineering and co-director of the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research,
319-335-5191,
gregory-carmichael@uiowa.edu.