Weatherwatch: Mixed woodlands can help temper weather extremes, study shows

Species-rich plot can produce cooling effect 4C greater than single-species plotWoodland with lots of different kinds of trees can do a good job of buffering heatwaves and extreme cold. Now a new study demonstrates that increasing the mix of species can help to mitigate climate extremes.Florian Schnabel, from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research in Leipzig, and colleagues measured forest temperatures over a six-year period at the world's largest tree diversity experiment in Xingangshan, in subtropical China. Their results, published in Ecology Letters, show that species-rich plots provided the greatest cooling effect during summer, with cooling more than 4C greater in an experimental plot with 24 species compared with a single-species plot. Diverse plots also maintained more warmth under the tree canopy on cold nights and during winter. Continue reading...