Climate change

Convener: Professor Bob Hill

Long Term Climate Change and the Contribution of the Plant Fossil Record

Plants fulfil an extremely important role in assisting us to understand the impact of carbon dioxide on climate change. Carbon dioxide affects plants in at least two fundamental ways – it is a greenhouse gas and hence impacts directly on some aspects of climate, and it is the fuel for photosynthesis and hence impacts directly on plant productivity. Almost all plants are sedentary and exposed to the elements, so they also must cope directly with the prevailing climate, and hence they provide a good direct measure of climate change. Over the last 50 million years we have seen the vegetation change from what is effectively tropical rainforest very close to the South Pole, to the current ice desert that prevails there. This is as large a change as it is possible to imagine. The fossil record documents this, and many other changes, very well and provides an important insight into what may happen in response to future climate change.