Droughts Are Pushing Plants to their Limit

Droughts in the Southwest made more severe by warming

temperatures are putting plants in stressful growing conditions

Droughts have seemingly been making winters milder and summers hotter than ever. Jeremy Weiss a senior research specialist in the UA department of geosciences, said " We Know the climate in the southwest is getting warmer but we wanted to investigate how the higher temperatures might interact with the highly variable precipitation typical of the region" Weiss and his team used a growing season to examine limits in the plant growth during times of drought. The research is supposed to help create a better understanding of how vegetation might respond to future droughts, if summers continue to get hotter and winters drier. Climatic growing conditions are already at an extreme level with just the relatively little warming we have seen thus far. Modeling land and current environmental disturbances will help us create a better understanding of how to work with our land.  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120911103411.htm