With midterm peaking the horizon, its time to consider the topic for a midterm paper for New England Flora. The prompt is to write a research paper about how climate change is affecting plants. You can choose any plant or type of plants from anywhere in the world. Because of this, I plan to choose something unique that peers might not think of immediately. Here, I will brainstorm some ideas over the course of the time leading up to when the paper is due. Initially I thought of the affect of global warming on plants of the far north, mainly trees and how their respiration is affected. During the winter, trees need to conserve as much water as possible as humidity is low. With global warming air temperatures rising steadily causing snow and ice to melti at an alarming rate. This would affect the amount of humidity in the air, therefor influencing how these tundra tree-line trees store water and even respirate.
Another idea I had was to evaluate aquatic plants. Specifically oceanic plants. Here, I could look at this relationship in a more positive light. There have been many articles and papers published about seaweed and climate change, specifically how growing vast plots of seaweed can help fight climate change. Increasing and expanding the seaweed farming industry can be beneficial to reducing a country's greenhouse gas emmission. While I think the negatives associated with climate change are extremely important, and as a realist I was tempted to write about a negative, I want to give myself and other who read my paper a bit of inspiration and hope about the future.
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