According to new research, Live Fast, Die Young is a belief that is often applied to rock stars but trees can easily describe new trees that grow fast have a long lifespan that can spread bad news to address the climate crisis.

In warmer conditions the trees tend to grow faster and this should act as a natural break in global warming as they consume more carbon dioxide from the air as they grow. New research, however, casts doubt on this beneficial cycle, the faster plants grow, the sooner they die – and so stops storing carbon.

A few fast-growing trees, including coniferous species in cold regions, have long been known to show short lifespans, but what was not known was the effects of warming conditions that could accelerate global warming as well as stimulate growth. An international team of their researchers in the peer-review journal Nature Communications on Tuesday revealed that the relationship between rapid growth and short life is best seen in tree species and latitudes.

Roll Bryan, an associate professor of geography at the University of Leeds, the lead author of the study, said: “We have begun a global analysis and are surprised that these trade closures are incredibly common. We have seen it in almost all species, including tropical trees.

Fast-growing trees in warmer conditions soon reach their maximum size and this increases their chances of dying. Trees that grow too fast can also be more vulnerable to factors such as drought, disease and pests. When trees die, they slowly release their stored carbon in the form of methane, a greenhouse gas.

This means that how we can use the forest as a carbon dip, many standard climate change models are likely to consider the benefits of adopting the carbon dioxide we produce from fossil fuels. This study suggests that future forests may grow faster as temperatures rise, but they may save less carbon because the trees die sooner.

“Our findings indicate that fast-growing trees have traits that make them weaker, while slow-growing trees have traits that enable them to retain,” said Steve Volcker, co-author of the study, at Syracuse University in New York. . “[The] Slow-growing and unbroken trees are fast-growing but planted by weaker trees, which can reduce the carbon footprint of the forest. “

David Lee, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Manchester Metropolitan University who is not involved in the study, said: Fossil fuel-based emissions will not really support scientific research by planting trees or deforestation.

But Keith Kerby, a timber environmentalist at Oxford University, says the result does not negate the rising value of trees to survive the climate crisis. “We cannot rely on growth per unit area to maintain and increase the potential for forest carbon sinks, but it can reduce deforestation and increase forest expansion, where it can be done in a sustainable way,” he said.

For the study, a team of international scientists analyzed data from more than 200,000 tree ring samples representing 110 species of trees across all continents except Africa and Antarctica.

They found that rapid growth was associated with shorter lifespans in the same species of trees and across different species and did not depend on climate or soil.

The researchers also conducted a computer simulation using data on Black Spruce (Paisia ​​Mariana), To see what the impact of rapid development on carbon storage will be. The results show that the greater tendency of plants to become lifeless after more rapid growth may decrease the ability of global forests to absorb and conserve carbon dioxide as temperatures rise.

Tree growth and conservation of existing forests is one of the most important ways to prevent the worst effects of the climate crisis. However, several studies have cast doubt on the ability of global forests to work to reduce carbon emissions in the face of climate change. A study published in March found that tropical forests are losing carbon storage efficiency, and a study published in May found that the world’s forests are getting shorter and shorter.