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Published online 10 August 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news070806-13

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Rising temperatures "will stunt rainforest growth"

Plants suffering in the heat could make global warming worse.

Global warming could cut the rate at which trees in tropical rainforests grow by as much as half, according to more than two decades' worth of data from forests in Panama and Malaysia. The effect — so far largely overlooked by climate modellers — could severely erode or even remove the ability of tropical rainforests to remove carbon dioxide from the air as they grow.

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