Redwoods grow almost as fast in the UK as their Californian cousins.

Enlarge / Look up has THE canopy of A sequoia TREE In A forest close Golden Grid Live steamboats, grizzly Culminate Boulevard In Oakland. Black-smith Collection/Gado/Getty

What can live For on 3,000 years, to weigh on 150 tons And could be session almost unnoticed In your local park? Giant redwoods (known as giant redwoods In THE UNITED KINGDOM) are among THE the highest And the heaviest organisms that to have Never lived on Earth, not has mention they to have THE potential has live longer that other species.

My the team new study East THE First of all has look has THE growth of giant redwoods In THE United Kingdom—and they seem has be TO DO remarkably GOOD. Trees has two of THE three sites We studied assorted THE average growth rates of their counterparts In THE WE, Or they come Since. These outstanding trees are be plant In A effort has help absorb carbon, but maybe more important they are become A striking And much admired part of THE UNITED KINGDOM landscape.

HAS live SO long, giant redwoods to have evolved has be extraordinarily resilient. In their native north California, they to occupy A ecological niche In mountainous ground 1400 to 2100 meters above sea level.

Their thick, spongy to bark isolated against fire And disease, And they can survive severe winters And laughed at are. Despite these challenges, these trees absorb And store CO₂ faster And In bigger quantities that almost any of them other In THE world, storage up has five times more carbon by hectare that even tropical tropical forests. However, THE changing climate means Californian giant redwoods are below threat Since more frequent And extreme droughts And fires. More that ten percent of THE remaining population of around 80,000 savage trees were kill In A Single fire In 2020 alone.

TREE giants Since THE WE

What East a lot less well known East that there are A estimated half A million redwoods (savage And plant) In England, point through THE landscape. SO how GOOD are THE UNITED KINGDOM giant redwoods TO DO? HAS to try And answer This, My team used A technical called earthly laser scanning has measure THE size And volume of giant redwoods.

THE laser send out half A million legumes A second And if A impulse shots A TREE, THE 3D location of each "hit" East checked in precisely. This given We A map of TREE structure In unprecedented detail, which We can to use has estimate volume And mass, Effectively allowing We has estimate THE trees weight. If We know how old THE trees are, We can estimate how fast they are growth And accumulate carbon.

As part of A Mastery project with ancient student Ross Holland, And along with colleagues has Kew Royal Botanical Gardens, We measure giant redwoods through three sites—Benmore botanical gardens In Scotland, Kew Wakehurst In Sussex, And To have Country Park In Esex. These sites scope THE the wettest (Benmore) And the driest (To have) climates In THE UNITED KINGDOM, allow We has assess how ...