'Educated' opinions on climate change part 2 40

There was some doubt expressed that increased atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures would increase biomass.


Well those whacky kids at NASA have done some work on that.

" Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated landmass -- almost 110 million square kilometres -- enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms in, it finds that each square metre of land, on average, now produces almost 500 grams of greenery per year.

Why the increase? Their 2004 study, and other more recent ones, point to the warming of the planet and the presence of CO2, a gas indispensable to plant life. CO2 is nature's fertilizer, bathing the biota with its life-giving nutrients. Plants take the carbon from CO2 to bulk themselves up -- carbon is the building block of life -- and release the oxygen, which along with the plants, then sustain animal life. As summarized in a report last month, released along with a petition signed by 32,000 U. S. scientists who vouched for the benefits of CO2: "Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier climates. Plants provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent and diversity of plant and animal life have both increased substantially during the past half-century."

Lush as the planet may now be, it is as nothing compared to earlier times, when levels of CO2 and Earth temperatures were far higher."





Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

"The extent and diversity of plant and animal life have both increased substantially during the past half-century"

That statement would appear, on its face, pretty easy to refute by species extinction data and by the rate of deforestation we've seen over the last 200 years. They'd need to cite pretty solid references to have any chance of having such a claim taken seriously. Unlike climactic change prediction, this one's not that hard to measure.

Humans have increased biomass production in certain ecosystems by use of intensive agriculture and artificial irrigation and fertilization. But there is no doubt that when the land in question was originally forest, particularly rainforest, the net result is a decrease in BOTH biomass productivity AND the genetic diversity of the resulting ecosystem.

Most carbon in biomass is ultimately recycled to the atmosphere with only a small fraction being permanently "fixed", so on timescales shorter than the geological it's a moot point anyway.

There is no doubt that increased CO2 increases plant biomass. There is also little question that plant biomass increases LESS than the CO2 itself increases. So if there's a worry about the climactic effects of increased atmospheric [CO2], it won't be eliminated by plants alone. This is borne out in the trends of atmospheric [CO2] versus time.

"Species extinction data" is almost exactly as uncertain as global climate data. No one knows within an order of magnitude how many plant and animal species there are in the world. No one knows what percent of this unknowable number typically becomes extinct in any given century. We truly don't know if the rate of change of planetary biodiversity is increasing or decreasing.

Objective measurements of the gases in the atmosphere show CO2 to be increasing. Objective comparison of the biomass on large land areas has been possible for the last 50 years and the NASA study above comes with some good credentials.

Data on global temperature is less objective and every study has a number of "correction factors" to account for urbanization, deforestation, etc. and those "factors" are manipulated to prove any point that an author wants to prove (often to secure his stipend). Looking at the data, I have no idea if global temperature is increasing or decreasing (I read a report last month that said "global warming can easily cause average temperatures to decrease" for god's sake). There was a lot of talk this past winter (in the northern hemisphere) about local conditions being as cold and severe as any on record and people wishing that "Global Warming" would hurry up and kick in.

I still don't see a man-made problem here (other than global hysteria and nearly universal irrational behaviour).

David

Isen't there some decrease in the available carbon by the longer storage of cut forrest products? Preserved or stored carbon would take longer to return to the atmosphere as CO2, and since this is also directly caused by human interraction, it is also a possible carbon reduction possibility.

Actually the article makes the point that one of the biggest growth areas was the Amazon, surprisingly. SO this may explain the predicted increase in biodiversity, given the estimated number of new species per square km is hugenum in forest compared with most habitats.

So 'the science is in' for at least one of the greenhouse gas myths, increased CO2 and/or temperatures tends to increase biomass.

Running et al., Nemani, R. R., Heinsch, F. A., Zhao, M., Reeves, M., Jolly, M. (2004). A continuous Satellite-derived measure of global terrestrial primary productivity. Bioscience, 54(6): 547-560.

And here's the lite version






Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

BTW when I wrote 'the science is in' I was being sarcastic. This paper provides additional evidence that the common sense theory, that a warmer, wetter, more CO2 laden Earth is going to produce more plant growth and so feed more people, rather than the opposite which is claimed by various GG alarmists.



Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

geez greg, ya gotta be carefull calling (quasi-religious) zealouts "alarmists". i mean, after all, they're only looking out for our best interests; it's just that we're too dumb/happy/compromised to realise the "truth" ... and damnit they're going to make us see the light.

Er, didn't those lush eras also teem with dinosaurs?
OK, so Global Warming will bring back the Dinosaurs....like it.


JMW

there's a country near where i live teeming with humans trying to do just that (ie morph into dinosaurs)

Greg: I don't think anyone is claiming that increasing [CO2] and other fossil fuel emission by-products is entirely without positive consequences. Nor is anyone claiming that there won't be some people who benefit from anthropogenic climate change. What's being argued is that the change is essentially irreversible, very likely human-caused, and that the likely results of the change are, in composite, significantly negative for MOST people in the world.

I know you want hard proof and cost accounting before we do anything, but I'm not satisfied that such an approach is sufficiently protective.

A biomass increase in the Amazon or the boreal forest, at least the portion of either that at this moment is still forested, will feed precious few additional people. And that change can be pretty fragile. Just look at the pine beetle infestation and the way it has spread across the Rocky Mountains- beetles literally raining from the skies like some biblical plague. North America's boreal forest will be in serious trouble in the next few years. If the winters had been cold enough to keep the little bastards in check, we'd be looking at an entirely different scenario- and that's just the result of one organism responding to climate change.

A "warmer, wetter climate" sounds more appealing that what my commonsense would tell me is likely to happen. Warm the climate and you're likely to see dry areas getting drier and wet areas getting wetter. That isn't working in the direction that will feed more people- quite the opposite in fact.

The effect of increased [CO2] on crop plants is known: yes, the yields of seeds and fruits (the portion we eat) increases- but the nutritive content does not increase to the same extent. So you do get a bit more food, but less nutritious food. You also increase the growth of the weeds. The amounts the yields increase is dwarfed by how much humans have increased the yields of crop plants versus their uncultivated predecessors.

All these discussions have a ring of "all change is bad", the World must stay exactly as it is today. No tectonic movement, no change in climate, no change in number or type of species, no new lakes, no changes in coastlines, no change in ocean currents.

If today's scare mongers had been around when India was about to hit Asia they would have projected forwards, realised the catastrophic consequences and tried to prevent the collision.

We have a lot of high cliffs where I live. Authorities are shoring them up with metalwork to prevent them from crumbling (probably blaming global warming for it) rather than letting the shape evolve naturally.

The new lake in China caused by the earthquake is seen as a bad thing. Do people think lakes were always there?

- Steve

Just look at the pine beetle infestation and I see the cause as a lack of biodiversity as the real cause. Having a greater diversity of trees is the solution. But because of the cold conditions of the past there has been a lack of biodiversity.
So if we have a problem with dead trees, why can't we harvest them, to make into 2X4's or wood lamps, or tables? Woulden't the harvest and manufactur of wood products slow the return of the carbon to the atomsphere?

cranky: ummm...because they catch fire before we can get to them? Dry forests full of dead trees equal forest fires from hell...They're logging vast tracts of the Canadian boreal forest at the moment for just this reason. The value of the wood doesn't pay for selective harvesting of just the dead pine in the more remote areas, so it all goes.

Yes, wood used in construction is as near you can get to permanently-stored carbon. But dead trees burn and rot. The forests need a little of both to stay healthy, but too much of either is a bad thing.

Man's intervention in stopping natural fires, clear-cutting old growth and re-planting monocultures etc., has definitely exascerbated the pine beetle problem. But the warm winters permitted it to spread, and the genie's definitely out of the bottle now. We can slow the spread, but can't prevent it.

SomptingGuy: the exact same fear of change is evident in the naysayers' prediction that addressing greenhouse gas emissions by reducing fossil fuel consumption will destroy our economies rather than stimulate them. The key difference is that in the case of our economies, we can go back to the old way if we don't like the result or if we discover evidence later that we've done something unnecessary. But once the CO2 is in the atmosphere, getting it back out ain't so simple!

molten -

It's exagerations like this -

"Just look at the pine beetle infestation and the way it has spread across the Rocky Mountains- beetles literally raining from the skies like some biblical plague."

that turn people off from believing anything related to global warming information.

The beetle infestation is as much a result of decades of forest fire policy as it has been the decade long drought.

I'm guessing you'll respond with information on how the beetle will die if the Rocky Mtns get a serious cold snap where it is -30f for a week or longer and there hasn't been one due to global warming? That is true also.

There is a heated debate within the forestry community over what has had a greater impact on the beetle outbreak - the weather or the forest fire policies.

Again - it's not clear cut.

Tut tut Greg, the proverbial hit the fan when I used the term alarmists in the previous post. I didnt' get to see some of the posts before they got removed but I'm sure they weren't nice.

I agree with your sentiment garrettk.

Anyway, I'll leave before I upset anyone.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Global warming, blaming it on emissions from anthropogenic causes... with CO2 at roughly 0.033% and CH4 roughly at 0.0002% on the atmosphere, and water vapour (yes, THE greenhouse gas) verging from 1 to 5% and sometimes higher. Is it really the burning of fossil fuels causing the global warming? Nah, I don't think so.

However, I do believe WE are having an impact, and a large one at that. Most GHG advocates focus on the most mobile, abundant and dynamic part of the environment, the atmosphere. Unfortunately they do not look into the soil, where, in my opinion, we are causing the greater impact. Soil contamination, deforestation for growing crops and grazing cattle, city sprawl, etc... is removing not only the absorbers of the dreaded CO2 (trees) but also affecting the water, which is the next less dynamic part of the environment.

I do not think, believe or support the idea of global warming, just yet. I do believe we can, eventually, in the near future, create irreversible effects, but in the ground, not in the air. The current temperature trends (if you can actually call them that, but that is a different discussion involving math at a deeper level) I think have more to do with the solar activity in the last decade than the human activity.

I think that if we are truly going to do a conscious effort to help prevent a global impact of the magnitude the GHGers predict, we should start at the ground level (literally) before we take flight.

I am surprised with the amount$$$$$$$$$ being spent in all this GHGE stuff and very little to none advocated to soil and newer technologies to reduce our footprint or even better, merge it with the environment.

Having said that, land brings in money, lots. It is called development. The air, not so much. It is easier to put pressure on reducing emissions than to put pressure in reducing land deforestation for development. You can own a piece of land, not so much a piece of sky. Well, maybe a condo, but you’re still land based.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying ” Damn that was fun!” - Unknown>>

Moltenmetal, Forest fires are supposed to clean up forests - when we keep putting them out they get too fierce and kill everything. Also, when we put fires out the trees get too thick and don't have enough water, so become susceptible to disease like pine beetles.

Also, the half life of CO2 in the atmosphere is around 40 years, so it's hardly "irreversible".

You apparently missed this winter - extremely cold, and that cold arctic air means a larger temperature (therefore density) difference along the jetstream - how cold is evidenced by increased tornadic activity.

I think your "commonsense" is tainted by a feeling of original sin.

Don't get caught up in this trap - you're an engineer, supposed to be smarter than that:

CO2 is easily removed from the air. Plant a tree and then bury the mature timber when finished.

civilperson,

That is one theory about the length of time of interglacials. During an ice age, the cold oceans take up a lot of the CO2 that is constantly produced by volcanic action. Then, after the biosphere becomes saturated with CO2, it jumps to interglacial. Subsequent increased rainfall and biospheric vibrancy produce vegetable matter which is continually buried by increased erosion, while the excess CO2 in the ocean is expelled by the fact solubility decreases with increased temperature (the warm coke effect). After the biosphere is exhausted of its life enhancing CO2, it drops back into another ice age. This has happened time and again for over a million years.

I think that makes a lot of sense.

Why is one beetle migrating north "due to climate change" more of a concern than Kudzu. African bees, rabbits, cats rats, dogs, grey squirrels, coypu, mink, Dutch elm disease etc which were not caused by climate change.
These are far more preventable problems, but all are not a disaster that man cannot survive.

I know, this particular beetle is likely to cause a loss of ash trees... and that means using aluminum bats in baseball. Or was that the bark beetle, the Mountain Bark beetle (native to the northern USA and Mexico) the lodgepole pine beetle (the Guardian says this is a climate change infestation).

Of course, in the UK, due to Dutch Elm disease (maybe they now think this was due to climate change, or maybe they haven't got around to re-classifying it yet) there are now no trees.
Well, actually, there are. Not that many elms, a lot of imported firs, Corsican pine of course, since that was planted by the thousands of acres and supports about one native insect species while an English (not European)oak will support about 1000 insect species.

Of course, local governments are busy chopping down trees all over the place because they drop chessnuts on peoples heads, have located themselves too near roads, are in the way of superstore developments etc. but then lots of people are busy planing trees all over the place including, allegedly, some of the carbon offset people.
Never mind CO2, anthropogenic (carried by man) trans-boundary migration of one species into another ecosystem where there are no checks is a real problem. One species disappearing from an ecosystem is far less problematic because it doesn't upset the whole system.

JMW