CO2 rise making the earth greener, more diverse

[DavidV]

By David from Truth, Justice, and the American Way,cross-posted by MetaBlog

According to NASA satellite data:

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.

[A] 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.”

Despite the evidence that cutting CO2 would cause environmental destruction and a net loss of bio-diversity,

Amazingly, although the risks of action are arguably at least as real as the risks of inaction, Canada and other countries are rushing into Earth-altering carbon schemes with nary a doubt.

More.

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http://ObjectivismOnline.com/archives/003695.html

[~Sophia~]

Most of the earth's plant life evolved in an atmosphere of much more concentrated CO2.

Increasing C02 levels speeds the time in which plants mature and improves their growth efficiency and water use. Botanists have long realized that which is why farmers started to pump CO2 into greenhouses. Higher CO2 levels also decrease water loss in plants, giving them an advantage in arid climates and during droughts.

Experiments shown (Department of Agriculture) that with 0.06% increase in C02, plant growth increased 51% under optimal water conditions and an astonishing 219% under conditions of water shortage.

CO2 enrichment also causes plants to develop more extensive root systems. Larger root systems allow plants to exploit additional pockets of water and nutrients. This means that plants have to spend less metabolic energy to capture vital nutrients. Additionally, more extensive, active roots stimulate and enhance the activity of bacteria and other organisms that break nutrients out of the soil, which the plants can then exploit.

Based on nearly 800 scientific observations around the world, a doubling of C02 from present levels would improve plant productivity on average 32% across species. Few details:

* Tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce average between 20% and 50% higher yields under elevated CO2 conditions.

* Cereal grains including rice, wheat, barley, oats and rye average between 25% and 64% higher yields.

* Food crops such as corn, sorghum, millet and sugar cane average yield increases from 10% to 55%.

* Root crops including potatoes, yams and cassava show average yield increases of 18% to 75% under elevated C02 conditions.

* Legumes including peas, beans and soybeans post increased yields of between 28% and 46%.

Increased crop yields means that humans will not have to convert more fragile forests, savannas and deserts into crop lands to feed growing populations.International research has demonstrated that trees also benefit from increased CO2 levels. In research from the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory, doubling C02 from current levels helped orange trees accumulate 2.8 times as much biomass in the first five years of the tests and yield 10 times as many oranges in the first two years of orange production. Other U.S. studies confirm these findings. Since 1890, high-altitude conifers in the Cascade Mountains of Washington have increased in mass approximately 60% from previous growth trends. Studies from other parts of the world demonstrate the same thing.

All of this is at a level of C02 which would not even remotely be a threat to human health. The anticipated rise in CO2 levels should be viewed as beneficial.

Edited June 10, 2008 by ~Sophia~

[Matus1976]

Great post Sophia, I laugh when I hear global warming alarmists cherry pick the tiny negatives they can get from accelerated plant growth, like poison ivy spreading further than ever before, and ignore the fact that nearly every plant, including food crops, will grow better with less water. For obvious reasons this fact of increased CO2 is barely mentioned. And they never note that accelerated plant growth will actually slow the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. I wonder how much of the 'missing carbon' is actually stored in the form of more plant mass from accelerated growth.

Good info on the numbers too, do you have links handy to any of these studies? I'm in the process of setting up a small aeroponic growing chamber to play around with accelerated plant growth.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Bumper sticker:

"Feed the world--drive your SUV"

...Nah. Smacks of altruism.

[Michael McGuire]

All of this is at a level of C02 which would not even remotely be a threat to human health. The anticipated rise in CO2 levels should be viewed as beneficial.

But what about the oceans, which cover 3/4 of the planet? The ocean acidity is rising as sea water absorbs more carbon dioxide. The higher acidity threatens marine life, including corals and shellfish, which may become extinct later this century. Coral reefs are a major ecosystem that would be threatened. Over the next few decades, the oceans may be more acidic than they have been for tens of millions of years. Not enough time for most organisms to evolve to avoid complete extinction.

[~Sophia~]

do you have links handy to any of these studies?

There are literarily hundreds of studies on this starting in 1970s. This book: Climate Change and Global Crop productivity provides a lot of relevant primary research references. Also this is a good overview. You should look into Free Air CO2 Enrichment technology (FACE) research results (a way to do it without walls as not everything can be grown in a greenhouse). For example, a lot of research on rice using FACE have been done recently by Chinese.

In terms of a statement that "on average, yields of crops should increase by 33% with a doubling of C02

concentration in the earth's atmosphere" - it has been taken from: Kimball, B.A. 1983. Carbon dioxide and agricultural yield: An assemblage and analysis of 430 prior observations. Agron. J. 75:779-788.

I think article is also a good source of info (a lot of primary references for diff plant species).

Edited June 10, 2008 by ~Sophia~

[~Sophia~]

But what about the oceans, which cover 3/4 of the planet?

Please read this for an objective non-agenda driven view and an in-depth look into this topic.

This site is also an excellent source. Eventhough access is by paid subscription - an article: Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Separating Scientific Fact from Personal Opinion by Sherwood B. Idso and Craig D. Idso from Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change is available for free. I encourage everyone to read it. This is a critical response to April 2007 testimony of James E. Hansen made to the Select Committee of Energy Independence and Global Warming of the United States House of Representatives entitled "Dangerous Human-Made Interference with Climate"

(this article includes info on ocean acidification).

First paragraph:

If there is any human enterprise that should be free of appeal to authority, it is science, where observation and impartial analysis are supposed to reign supreme. However, when the outcome of an ongoing scientific investigation is perceived to be a powerful catalyst for governmental action by the world’s community of nations, and when the leading policy prescription for those actions is something akin to a massive restructuring of the way the energy that runs the modern world is produced, distributed and used – and especially if the policy is developed before all pertinent data have been acquired and properly analyzed – this principle can easily be forgotten. In such circumstances, and even more so if the subject being studied is extremely complex – such as how human activity will impact global climate centuries into the future – and when a divergence of views develops because of ambiguities in the observations and different methods of analysis, it is important that personal opinion be clearly differentiated from demonstrable fact. Sadly, however, this distinction is hard to make on a consistent basis, even for some of the very best of the world’s scientists.

Edited June 10, 2008 by ~Sophia~

[~Sophia~]

Coral reefs are a major ecosystem that would be threatened.

From that article:

In a study of calcification rates of massive Porites coral colonies on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR), Lough and Barnes (1997) found that 'the 20th century has witnessed the second highest period of above average calcification in the past 237 years.

[~Sophia~]

Please read this for an objective non-agenda driven view and an in-depth look into this topic.

I encourage everyone to read both part 2 and part 3 (you have to scroll up).

[Michael McGuire]

Please read this for an objective non-agenda driven view and an in-depth look into this topic.

This site is also an excellent source. Eventhough access is by paid subscription - an article: Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Separating Scientific Fact from Personal Opinion by Sherwood B. Idso and Craig D. Idso from Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change is available for free. I encourage everyone to read it. This is a critical response to April 2007 testimony of James E. Hansen made to the Select Committee of Energy Independence and Global Warming of the United States House of Representatives entitled "Dangerous Human-Made Interference with Climate"

(this article includes info on ocean acidification).

First paragraph:

Was this published somewhere? Somewhere where other scientists could review the work and comment? The paper cites some studies but then there is no index to look for them in. Where is all this information coming from???

I am highly dubious of any info from the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, which receives ample funding from Exxon and Western Fuels Association, who have embarked on a campaign to deliberately confuse the public on global warming. The organization appears to be entirely comprised of a single family, the Idsos, according to Sourcewatch. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), Craig Idso, Chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, also is a member of the Science and Public Policy Institute which you cited earlier. Hmmm...

And the study by Lough and Barnes is over 10 years old, isn't there anything more recent?

[~Sophia~]

The paper cites some studies but then there is no index to look for them in.

There are 10 pages of references at the end. I saw it when I used pdf format.

I am highly dubious of any info from the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, which receives ample funding from Exxon and Western Fuels Association,

The validity of a claim is not dependent on the source of funding but it's correspondence to reality. You can check every study they cited.

[~Sophia~]

And the study by Lough and Barnes is over 10 years old, isn't there anything more recent?

Bessat, F. and Buigues, D. 2001. Two centuries of variation in coral growth in a massive Porites colony from Moorea (French Polynesia): a response of ocean-atmosphere variability from south central Pacific. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 175: 381-392.

Carricart-Ganivet, J.P. 2004. Sea surface temperature and the growth of the West Atlantic reef-building coral Montastraea annularis. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 302: 249-260.

Also, from this report:

Another reason for not believing that the ongoing rise in the atmosphere's CO2 content will lead to reduced oceanic pH and, therefore, lower calcification rates in the world's coral reefs and other calcifying organisms, is that the same phenomenon that powers the twin processes of coral calcification and phytoplanktonic growth (i.e., photosynthesis) tends to increase the pH of marine waters (Gnaiger et al., 1978; Santhanam et al., 1994; Brussaard et al., 1996; Lindholm and Nummelin, 1999; Macedo et al., 2001; Hansen, 2002); and this phenomenon has been shown to have the ability to dramatically increase the pH of marine bays, lagoons and tidal pools (Gnaiger et al., 1978; Santhanam, 1994; Macedo et al., 2001; Hansen, 2002), as well as significantly enhance the surface water pH of areas as large as the North Sea (Brussaard et al., 1996).

[~Sophia~]

While browsing through Objectivist blog posts last night I have noticed that Monica from Spark the Synapse commented on this topic:

And I've also seen some gross misinformation about how plants will respond to CO2 out there on the web. I can't even be bothered to dig this stuff up but they're common myths that plants will grow faster with more CO2. These articles keep getting disseminated on Drudge and they lack a lot of context, such as what the fertilizer loads in those plots are. Obviously if you increase a plant's limiting nutrient, it will use up more of the non-limiting ones. Whatever we read on either side really needs to be taken with huge chunk of salt, I believe.

Since I have made this claim here I would like to offer some additional information which will explain the the observed C and N interplay.

My conclusions presented here were based on the work done by soil physicist Dr. Bruce Kimball who was the driving force in the development of FACE system (free air carbon dioxide enrichment), which simulates natural field conditions.

Decates of his work (he started mid 1980s) indicate that plants thrive in environments with high levels of CO₂ — all other things being equal in terms what is being supplied to the plant (with less water further increasing the effect). The plants almost always deliver much much higher yields than controls, with more sugar and starch in their leaves. They also take up less nitrogen from the soil (this lower N requirement addresses the issue raised by Monica), because they are making less protein. A lot of the protein in leaves is involved in assimilating CO₂ into sugars. At higher CO₂ levels that becomes easier; less protein is needed, and so less protein is made. The major exception is in the C4 plants, which are better at photosynthesis in less favourable conditions and so are less susceptible to the effects of changing CO₂ levels. C4 crops include maize, sorghum and sugar cane.

So higher CO₂ concentrations can lead to lower nutritional quality of crops. However, Dr. Kimball thinks that this effect overall is a benefit - the gains in yield are drastic. There are studies which measure protein loss % to yield gain for specific plant species to assess which ratio is the most economical.

Edited July 10, 2008 by ~Sophia~

[agrippa1]

I am highly dubious of any info from the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, which receives ample funding from Exxon and Western Fuels Association, who have embarked on a campaign to deliberately confuse the public on global warming.

I wonder if you're equally dubious of studies funded by the left/Liberal, anti-capitalist academic establishment, which has a disturbing record of suppressing non-conforming views, and of censuring and blocking funding to scientist who do not toe the global warming line.

[Michael McGuire]

I wonder if you're equally dubious of studies funded by the left/Liberal, anti-capitalist academic establishment, which has a disturbing record of suppressing non-conforming views, and of censuring and blocking funding to scientist who do not toe the global warming line.

If you're asking whether you can compare the credibility of all of academia to that of a paid shill for energy companies, then the answer is no, there is no comparison.

Each individual scientist must compete for funding. The best way to advance your career within the scientific community is to prove everyone else wrong. It is their job to poke holes in each others arguments. The fact that nobody can come up with a legitimate theory that debunks the consensus on climate change speaks volumes about the strength of the evidence.

If you have evidence that all of "left/Liberal, anti-capitalist academic establishment" is acting on one big conspiracy to stifle dissent about global warming, then, as someone eloquently put it on a recent thread, it's time to write that paper up and pick up your Nobel prize.

Also, since my attention is back on this thread, I wanted to address Sophia. It is laudable that you are spending time reviewing the research on GW. But in order to develop an expertise you have to first have some training in climate science, then you have to read almost all the studies relating to GW (in the thousands) in order to know where any particular research fits in to the overall body of evidence. Now I'm not saying this is impossible, its very possible. But for anyone with their own career, its very difficult to for someone to put that amount of time in.

We have to rely on the experts in the field, and weigh their data, conclusions, judgments against each other. And it is unfortunate but the evidence is very compelling that man is affecting the environment. Much more compelling than a conspiracy of science worldwide.

Edited July 11, 2008 by Michael McGuire

[~Sophia~]

The best way to advance your career within the scientific community is to prove everyone else wrong.

This shows nothing but ignorance.

Also, since my attention is back on this thread, I wanted to address Sophia. It is laudable that you are spending time reviewing the research on GW. But in order to develop an expertise you have to first have some training in climate science, then you have to read almost all the studies relating to GW (in the thousands) in order to know where any particular research fits in to the overall body of evidence. Now I'm not saying this is impossible, its very possible. But for anyone with their own career, its very difficult to for someone to put that amount of time in.

And this does not deserve a response.

edit:

I just noticed your poll. The truth is not determined by public opinion.

Edited July 11, 2008 by ~Sophia~

[softwareNerd]

The best way to advance your career within the scientific community is to prove everyone else wrong.

Sophia has said this already, but I cannot stress how wrong you are. This description seems to be from some type of idealization of what things ought to be rather than how things are.

While it is true that the occasional maverick can break ranks, turn things upside down and even establish his own school of thought, the vast majority make their career by sticking within the boundaries of what they think will be acceptable to their bosses and those who pay their wages. This is not unique to academics, but nor are they particularly unique.

[gears/motion]

I've only just started reading the working of Professor Robert M. Carter but he seems to be on the spot.

I've yet to see him mention acidity in the oceans but there is a lot to read though.

His main site: http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/ click on the "public education" hyper link for various works.

I recommend this report: http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/2007%20...20corrected.pdf

[Michael McGuire]

Sophia has said this already, but I cannot stress how wrong you are. This description seems to be from some type of idealization of what things ought to be rather than how things are.

While it is true that the occasional maverick can break ranks, turn things upside down and even establish his own school of thought, the vast majority make their career by sticking within the boundaries of what they think will be acceptable to their bosses and those who pay their wages. This is not unique to academics, but nor are they particularly unique.

I don't understand where you're getting this. How can it be plausibly claimed that science isn't an enormously competitive endeavor? Have you ever talked to a scientist about your ideas about how they're all "sticking within the boundaries of what they think will be acceptable"? Swing by your local university and just pick 5 researchers at random, at random, and see if anyone agrees with you.

I don't suppose you find the irony in discrediting academics, yet believing energy co. funded research on GW that isn't peer reviewed. I love the quote from Upton Sinclair: "It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it." At least in the world of academia there is what is known as academic freedom which protects the intellectual freedom of faculty. If you're producing industry-funded science, you have no such protection and are more subject to the whims of your bosses.

[~Sophia~]

I don't suppose you find the irony in discrediting academics, yet believing energy co. funded research on GW that isn't peer reviewed.

Try not to twist facts. Industry founded review article (take a note that the primary research it was based on was done in academia) was not the only evidence provided to you. You clearly did not bother to examine any of it. Dr. Carter, for example, (from that video presentation I linked to) is a Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia) with over 30 years of professional experience and over 100 peer reviewed scientific publications.

[Michael McGuire]

I've only just started reading the working of Professor Robert M. Carter but he seems to be on the spot.

You could take any claim you hear from Carter and bring it over to www.realclimate.org, where it will be thoroughly debunked, especially his infamous article on how GW stopped in 1998. There's a lot of discussion and a lot of skeptics chime in and are welcomed. All their recycled claims are put under the microscope.

[Thales]

Michael,

I was going to vote on your poll question, when I realized it's not exhaustive. You need an entry for "Mankind is having minimal but insignificant influence on GW." I couldn't post to the poll question thread, because it was locked.

[KurtColville]

I'll echo Thales' comment. My understanding is that we're in the relative beginning of the warming part of a 15,000-year cycle, driven primarily by small, long-term variations in solar radiation. The amount of average temperature variation this produces on Earth over one cycle is only a few degrees. That's enough to affect considerable climate change over 15,000 years (ice ages), but it's nothing over the 50-100 years that everyone on our planet is in a panic over. Add to that the laughably small amount of man-made emissions compared to what is required to produce significant atmospheric change, and you've got an idea of just what a man-hating hoax global warming is. I went ahead and voted for the "no unusual change" option, since the current climatological changes aren't unusual.