Climate change could be slowed by planting crop varieties that reflect more sunlight, claim food scientists

Food crops could be used to keep the Earth's temperatures down and slow global warming, say scientists. By growing plants that can reflect more of the sun's radiation back into space, parts of Europe and North America could be cooled by 1°C in the summer, the equivalent of stopping billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere over the next century.Growing agricultural plants such as maize or barley already cools the climate because they reflect more sunlight back into space than natural vegetation. Different varieties of the same plant can vary in how much light they reflect, a property called albedo, so selecting for higher-albedo crops would enhance the cooling effect from agriculture.Using the same climate models as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Andy Ridgewell led a team of scientists at the University of Bristol to calculate how different varieties of crops would affect global temperatures. "It...

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