MOSCOW, May 22. /TASS/. Russian scientists found that the reaction of trees in Siberian forests to ambient temperatures increase due to global warming may be tracked very accurately by analyzing the changing character of reflected blue light from annual rings of trees. This way, scientists may learn more about the history of temperature changes in the North's remote areas, press service of the Russian Science Foundation (RSF) said.
"This method has been developed actively only over the recent decade, but its accuracy and applicability to big areas and to different types of trees have not been sufficiently studied yet. Therefore, we've decided to test this approach in Siberian forests, where larch is one of the main species," the Russian Science Foundation's press service quoted Alberto Arsak, head of the Laboratory for Integrated Studies of Eurasian Forest Dynamics at the Siberian Federal University (Krasnoyarsk) as saying.
According to the scientist and his colleagues, the Russian Arctic and mountainous regions presently are facing the most rapid climate change, as temperatures in their territories are rising many times faster in global warming than in any other parts of the world. Such changes may have extremely negative impacts on plants, which encourages ecologists to study how rare and widespread tree species are reacting to temperature fluctuations.
