Question: How is climate change affecting plants?

Emma Markham answered on 12 Jun 2019:

Unfortunately climate change is affecting plants in a lot of ways. So climate change has caused more extreme weather, as well as hotter drier summers.

Plants have enzymes, these can only work at specific temperatures and if they get too hot they can no-longer work. Some plants are adapted and can cope with heat, like cacti, but most cannot and are adapted for a specific temperature range, and so when this dramatically changes the plant does not grow as well or dies completely.

Plants also need a lot of water, some plants are adapted to store water and stop it being lost (the cacti again) but many other plants cannot do this, and they have little pores similar to people and loose water just like we sweat, to cool the plant. If the plant gets too hot and looses too much water it will die.

Many plants become dormant over winter (this is similar to hybernating) and if there is a really warm winter or spring then the plant begins ‘waking up’ and growing, but then if it becomes cold again a frost can kill the plant. Global warming causes unusual weather, so sometimes there will be a hot week in February and this confuses the plants and they die.

So plants have a lot of challenges to cope with climate change, and unlike animals they cannot just move somewhere better. Scientist are trying to breed crops which can cope with hotter weather and drought to ensure we still have sustainable food, as it will take time to reverse climate change.