California's Old-growth Redwoods Thrive Amid Climate Change [VIDEO]

California's old-growth redwood forests can store up to three times more carbon than non-redwood forests and a warming climate seems to have triggered a growth surge in the ancient trees, according to a new study.

Save the Redwoods League, along with researchers from UC Berkeley, Humboldt State University and the Marine Conservation Institute, conducted a four-year study aimed at predicting how rapid climate change will affect the old-growth forests over time.

When the project was started in 2009 it was unclear how climate change was affecting California's redwood forests.

The study, known as the Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative (RCCI), provided welcomed good news in the face of climate change woes faced by the Golden State and the world at large.

"In 2009 carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were hovering around 386 parts per million (ppm) and in the four years of this study the carbon dioxide concentration has gone up to about 400 ppm, that's a very significant increase, that's a higher level than we've had on Earth for the last 650,000 years," said Emily Burns, Director of Science for Save the Redwoods League.

According to the League, the top three findings from the study were that the ancient redwood forests along the California coast in the Sierra Mountains to the state's east are "carbon storage champions," absorbing three times more carbon dioxide than other forests, that changing environmental conditions have caused a growth spurt in the trees, and that while California summers have warmed, precipitation has remained highly variable over the decades, though overall levels have not decreased.

"These results bolster our mission to protect redwoods because these trees are pulling incomparable amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere which helps combat global warming," Burns said. "We have found ancient forests where climate conditions are accelerating growth and we predict these places will stay vibrant habitat refuges for other plants and animals in the foreseeable future."

At a cost of $3 million -- funded by grants and donations -- the multiyear study was the most intensive research project ever done on old-growth redwoods, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The study also found that while ancient redwoods height growth slows with age, the amount of wood the trees produce each year increases.

During the course of the study, researchers found a 2,520 year old specimen, which they say is oldest coastal redwood on record today.

Additionally, the scientists developed a new type of tree ring record from the ancient redwoods which can be used to examine how the trees were affected over the course of various climate events such as drought, fires and flooding, which have happened throughout the centuries.

"Although these are significant findings for redwood trees, it's clear that we have more work to do to study how younger forests and the other redwood forest plant and animal species will respond to climate change," Burns said.

The study is expected to continue for another decade and continue to examine how climate change affects the growth of all ages of redwood tree, further expand the tree ring database, examine carbon storage levels in old growth forests and track changes in other flora that live in the old-growth redwood forests.