Impacts of ozone on vegetation in a changing climate:
Even though there are several studies on the impacts of ozone pollution on vegetation, it is important to focus its impacts with respect to a changing global climate. In other words, predicting future impacts of ozone pollution on vegetation withing the context of global climate changes rather than within the regional/international scale.
Research showed how current levels of tropospheric O3 (ground level ozone) are damaging crops, trees, and semi-natural vegetations. Under critical levels of ozone in the atmosphere, resulted in vegetation responding to it by absorbing O3 (or exchanging O3) through the stomata. The purpose of the research is to understand its impacts under a changing climate. Thus, it is important to take into consideration the varying influences of temperature, water vapor pressure deficit, light, soil water potential, O3 concentration in the atmosphere, and the development of the plant under ozone uptake. A scenario modeling provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), shows that by the end of the 21st century there will be global changes in the O3 concentrations, an increase in the mean temperature as well as in the carbon dioxide concentrations and in the frequency of extreme events as a result of changes in the precipitation patterns.
Some of the responses of plant to the increasing ozone concentrations in the atmosphere include, for example, warming on the canopy O3 flux. Which might lead to earlier plant development, causing a possible shift in the period where plants absorb O3, followed by a change in the stomatal O3 fluxes. Moreover, studies showed that increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere reduce stomatal conductance. Indicating that elevated CO2, the uptake of O3 might decrease.
Something that all researchers should have well into consideration when doing their investigations, is that the global climate is inevitably changing, ultimately having a direct and indirect effects on basically everything. This being said, future predictions on the effect of O3 on vegetation is influenced by a changing climate.
Centre, U. E. (2006). Impacts of ozone on vegetation in a changing climate : report / by the Programme Centre Centre of the International Cooperative Programme on Effects of Air Pollution on Natural Vegetation and Crops (ICP Vegetation).
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 