Would it be possible to turn a desert region into a rain forest? For example if Nevada decided to plant trees in the dessert is it possible with enough irrigation or would all the trees just die?
> enough irrigation
Pretty big if.
Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener
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Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener
#52Would it be possible to turn a desert region into a rain forest? For example if Nevada decided to plant trees in the dessert is it possible with enough irrigation or would all the trees just die?
Some problems:
1.Forest fires within a dry climate(vs humid jungle).
2.If the water table is too deep, trees will need artificial irrigation, forever.
3.It seems easy to create a single-point of failure : monoculture of "best-performing" tree species which would succumb easily to specialized insects or fungus.
Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener
#53Serious question from a non-climate scientist: would an increase in global temperatures due to climate change ultimately cause more greenery, due to new growth in previously too-cold areas?
Yes. But things like permafrost melting could release massive amounts of methane and CO2 to have a net opposite effect at least for the first decades / centuries.
Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener
#54From what I understand, the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will have a massive greening effect on the Earth (plants love CO2). But it seems this fact is usually omitted so as not to complicate the intended message. I always found it ironic that the "eco" mode button in many cars is a leaf icon.
Clearly increased plant growth due to higher CO2 concentrations are not stopping CO2 concentrations from spiking precipitously right now, because it's still spiking precipitously.
It's very small effect that would take enormous spans of time to make any significant difference. Also in order for those plants to grow faster and make a difference, there needs to be a significant amount of plants. So it's a marginal issue. If plants grow at (made up number) 2% faster due to higher CO2 concentrations, that doesn't help much if we've wiped out 90% of the plant biomass.
Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener
#55From what I understand, the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will have a massive greening effect on the Earth (plants love CO2). But it seems this fact is usually omitted so as not to complicate the intended message. I always found it ironic that the "eco" mode button in many cars is a leaf icon.
The fundamental problem is that humans are not plants. In 100 million years all the CO2 might become coal or oil again but humans won't be there to witness it.
Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener
#56Or maybe just the resolution of the satellite images have just improved resulting in what appears to be a more greener earth.
Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener
#57Serious question from a non-climate scientist: would an increase in global temperatures due to climate change ultimately cause more greenery, due to new growth in previously too-cold areas?
I think that eco-systems do move to higher latitudes when the earth warms. This happened e.g. at the transition from ice ages. However the problem is that if the rate of warming is too high, eco-systems will not be able spread and adapt fast enough, leading to a net loss of bio-mass.
See e.g. page 3 of https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/33/8252.full.pdf on biogeophysical feedback.
I am afraid the warming rate anticipated currently is at least an order of magnitude higher than any climate changes the earth faced before.
Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener
#58https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/science/climate-change-pl...
"Despite global greening, carbon dioxide levels have climbed over the past two centuries to levels not seen on Earth for millions of years. And the carbon dioxide we’ve injected into the atmosphere is already having major impacts across the planet."
The "global greening" effect, to the amount it can manifest itself, existed since the CO2 started to increase but we still see that the problems from higher CO2 increase and will get always bigger.
It won't save us from any problems made by global warming.
Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener
#59From what I understand, the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will have a massive greening effect on the Earth (plants love CO2). But it seems this fact is usually omitted so as not to complicate the intended message. I always found it ironic that the "eco" mode button in many cars is a leaf icon.
Green mass of the leafs is the captured carbon dioxide that doesn't contribute to a greenhouse effect. Even if all leafs will be oxidized in a year, it doesn't matter because new leafs will emerge. Though I'm not sure about actual green mass on the Earth and cannot compare it with mass of CO2 in athmosphere, maybe it is too small to have any effect.
An our challenge going forward is the long term sequestration of carbon, this will not help, as it will not capture the excess CO₂ released by humanity. If a significant part of this greening is farmland, there is of course also the CO₂ released through field work and harvesting to consider.
Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener
#60From what I understand, the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will have a massive greening effect on the Earth (plants love CO2). But it seems this fact is usually omitted so as not to complicate the intended message. I always found it ironic that the "eco" mode button in many cars is a leaf icon.
Clearly increased plant growth due to higher CO2 concentrations are not stopping CO2 concentrations from spiking precipitously right now, because it's still spiking precipitously. It's very small effect that would take enormous spans of time to make any significant difference. Also in order for those plants to grow faster and make a difference, there needs to be a significant amount of plants. So it's a marginal issu…
but TFA clearly says we haven't wiped out 90% of the plant biomass. It clearly says that there are more plants than there were 20 years ago, not less.
CO2 concentrations are growing at <1% pa (year on year - there are large variations between northern hemisphere summer/winter), so an additional 2% absorbing effect from an increasing number of plants is not insignificant.