Tropical Forests May Be Getting Too Hot for Photosynthesis
Published on August 25, 2023
This article describes that when trees get too hot, energy production in their leaves breaks down.
The study, published on Wednesday in Nature, finds that even when the surrounding air is significantly cooler than the leaves themselves, some 0.01 percent of individual leaves can reach a critical temperature at which the enzymes required for photosynthesis go through a process called denaturation—the same type of irreversible change that egg proteins in cake batter undergo in the oven.