World's forests have been taking more time to recover from droughts. This has led Utah University researchers to affirm that the forests' ability to store climate-changing carbon dioxide is less than what was considered before.

The research published in the journal Science has unveiled that if forests are absorbing less carbon dioxide then that means the effects of climate change will be quite worse than what have been predicted by the previous models.

Study's lead researcher William Anderegg said the findings are important as they give a hint that the frequency and severity of future droughts will be severe. As per the researchers, it took two to four years for the tree to recover after the drought to come back to normal growth and store greater amount of carbon dioxide.

The researchers found that in the first year of post-drought recovery, trees have grown 9% more slowly than expected and 5% slower in the second year. If the scenario is considered as per the world's forests then it would be having a great impact on how carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

Due to the reduced carbon storage capacity over a century has resulted into an extra 1.6 million gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. For the study, the researchers have studied 1,300 forest sites worldwide with the help of data on severe droughts starting in 1948.

"In most of our current models of ecosystems and climate, drought effects on forests switch on and off like a light. When drought conditions go away, the models assume a forest's recovery is complete and close to immediate", said Anderegg.