Posted on 09/23/2019 8:58:59 AM PDT by grundle
From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.
An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.
This image shows the change in leaf area across the globe from 1982-2015.
Credits: Boston University/R. Myneni
Green leaves use energy from sunlight through photosynthesis to chemically combine carbon dioxide drawn in from the air with water and nutrients tapped from the ground to produce sugars, which are the main source of food, fiber and fuel for life on Earth. Studies have shown that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide increase photosynthesis, spurring plant growth.
However, carbon dioxide fertilization isn’t the only cause of increased plant growth—nitrogen, land cover change and climate change by way of global temperature, precipitation and sunlight changes all contribute to the greening effect. To determine the extent of carbon dioxide’s contribution, researchers ran the data for carbon dioxide and each of the other variables in isolation through several computer models that mimic the plant growth observed in the satellite data.
Results showed that carbon dioxide fertilization explains 70 percent of the greening effect, said co-author Ranga Myneni, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University. “The second most important driver is nitrogen, at 9 percent. So we see what an outsized role CO2 plays in this process.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOwHT8yS1XI
Video: From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This video is public domain and can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio.
About 85 percent of Earth’s ice-free lands is covered by vegetation. The area covered by all the green leaves on Earth is equal to, on average, 32 percent of Earth’s total surface area - oceans, lands and permanent ice sheets combined. The extent of the greening over the past 35 years “has the ability to fundamentally change the cycling of water and carbon in the climate system,” said lead author Zaichun Zhu, a researcher from Peking University, China, who did the first half of this study with Myneni as a visiting scholar at Boston University.
Every year, about half of the 10 billion tons of carbon emitted into the atmosphere from human activities remains temporarily stored, in about equal parts, in the oceans and plants. “While our study did not address the connection between greening and carbon storage in plants, other studies have reported an increasing carbon sink on land since the 1980s, which is entirely consistent with the idea of a greening Earth,” said co-author Shilong Piao of the College of Urban and Environmental Sciences at Peking University.
While rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the air can be beneficial for plants, it is also the chief culprit of climate change. The gas, which traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere, has been increasing since the industrial age due to the burning of oil, gas, coal and wood for energy and is continuing to reach concentrations not seen in at least 500,000 years. The impacts of climate change include global warming, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and sea ice as well as more severe weather events.
The beneficial impacts of carbon dioxide on plants may also be limited, said co-author Dr. Philippe Ciais, associate director of the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences, Gif-suv-Yvette, France. “Studies have shown that plants acclimatize, or adjust, to rising carbon dioxide concentration and the fertilization effect diminishes over time.”
“While the detection of greening is based on data, the attribution to various drivers is based on models,” said co-author Josep Canadell of the Oceans and Atmosphere Division in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Canberra, Australia. Canadell added that while the models represent the best possible simulation of Earth system components, they are continually being improved.
They can’t help themselves. Even when it’s good it has to bad. Got to keep those government grant dollars flowing.
All life is carbon-based. Carbon is bad. Therefore life is bad. It explains why Democrats are strong advocates of child sacrifice, which they call “choice”.
People do not realize how short a time it takes for brush and trees to take over a property.
Eighty acres of clear crop and grass land in Arkansas, forty years ago within ten years of being abandoned, was a jungle of trees and briars. It is impassable now. It will take major cleaning to restore it to crop land.
In NE Oklahoma, 13 acres of what was once good grass land twenty years ago is today briar patches with trees growing out of ever nook and cranny. On my property, only yearly mowing with a brush hogging has kept it from being taken over by trees and briars.
Anyone remember the Trans-Amazon highway being built fifty years ago? When they got a section paved and done, within a year the natural growth of the jungle destroyed the roads.
FINALLY !!
Some common sense, and science.
Notice how the top of North Africa is still a barren desert.
That is so sad. The Northern African coast used to be ‘granary of the world’ just as the American Midwest is now. Huge barges filled with grain used to carry food from northern Africa, Libia, etc to Rome. Rome used to pay for it in gold coins.
In fact the trade imbalance was so high that Rome had to re-value its money several times just to pay for the food. It forced Rome to expand, it could only pay for its food if it attacked and conquered another country and took its gold. It eventually led to the fall of the Roman Empire.
Look at Africa’s northern coast it now, a barren desert.
WHY??? Because the CO2 levels ARE STILL TOO LOW, the global temperatures are still too low, the precipitation is still too low.
Lets save the planet by driving our 1970’s muscle cars, our 1990’s gas hog SUV’s, burning more coal and natural gas, and using oil for heating homes.
Doing barbecues in our backyard is our civic duty.
Plants need to eat too. Lets be inclusive.
Lets treat those global warming nutcases like they truly are: World Killing Terrorrists
They want to ban plant food and they distract attention from real pollution.
P4L
“...due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide...”
~~~
I suspect that this was intentionally mis-stated.
The intent is to mislead.
Are there consistantly higher levels of measured CO2 in the atmosphere?
I think what more accurately should say is “due to rising levels of carbon dioxide availability”... there is more green vegetation.
The increased vegetation will compensate for the CO2 by metabolizing it into O2 because of the increased photosynthesis and the CO2 levels will be moderated.
assuming that any of this is actually true, this looks like a simple case of planetary homeostasis that checks and balances atmospheric CO2 with the CO2 bound by terrestrial flora ... just one of many such planetary homeostatic systems ...
I see no mention in the article of oxygen the beneficial result of photosynthesis, as well as carbon dioxide reduction.
CO2 increases green plants, and increased green plants increase the carbon sinks, sequestering CO2 in the plants, which over time puts the carbon back in the earth in the life cycle of the plants.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide is natural, organic, and free range.
410 PPM is a completely insignificant number......and only 5% of that is man made.
And no mention of the increase in volcanic activity. Anyone remember the 2018 lower Puna eruption in Hawaii? Or naturally occurring wild fires?
Plants produce oxygen through the process of photosynthesis, and convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and organic compounds.
In other words plants are a sink for carbon dioxide. That is a good thing, is it not?
Have these guys been rounded up and executed yet?
And abandoned lots which once contained houses in Detroit are now small woodlands......and some contain pheasants.
What I have been saying all the time - carbon dioxide is plant food.
And as the plants consume carbon dioxide, they are also renewing that very reactive element, oxygen, without which no higher form of life on earth could continue to exist.
On a purely objective basis, oxygen can be a pretty nasty element, and as an element, second only to fluorine, a VERY corrosive gas of the halogen family of elements, in its chemical reactivity. Only, the Lord in his wisdom chose to make oxygen a VERY important part of the metabolism of all protoplasm in which life on earth resides. Therefore, to us, oxygen is totally and inseparably tied to life itself.
Conclusion is, we NEED carbon dioxide. Don’t mess with it.
Like messing around with the Lord.
“All life is carbon-based. Carbon is bad. Therefore life is bad. It explains why Democrats are strong advocates of child sacrifice, which they call “choice”.”
Democrats would have been better off calling climate change pollution and shaming people and countries to clean up after themselves.
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