A forest of mature oak trees is able to extract CO2 from the atmosphere and lock it into new wood, researchers at the University of Birmingham have found.

In 2016, the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR) founded the Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) experiment to study the impact our changing climate has on woodlands.

Within BIFoR FACE’s 52-acre forest in Staffordshire is a group of 180-year-old English (or ‘pedunculate’) oak trees with a canopy reaching 26 metres tall. Within this canopy a network of pipes has been inserted that pumps out CO2 to recreate the conditions of our future warming planet.

For the past seven years, an international team of researchers working at BIFoR FACE have been measuring the effect of elevated CO2 on the oak trees’ wood production.

The results are surprising in that the older trees responded by locking in the increased CO2 and converted it into woody biomass. In fact, the findings of the study reveal that exposure to elevated...