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Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener

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Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener

#121

Post by gameswithgo »

kingkawn wrote: post #116
ajuc wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> plants love CO2 In artifical conditions in laboratory there is a significant effect, up to 20% when doubling pre-industrial CO2 concentration. But, in practice for wild plants nitrogen quickly becomes the bottleneck, so the real gains are much smaller. And even for farming plants (which have fertilizer providing additional nitrogen) the real gains diminish, and are more in 5-10% range. For some crops CO2 has very l…

If you seeded an ecosystem with nitrogen supplements would it allow the plant life to grow at an accelerated rate and capture carbon?

we are already doing that aggressively to feed everyone, and we worry it might be hard to keep it up, as is.

Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener

#122

Post by merpnderp »

imtringued wrote: post #55
FriedPickles wrote: post #18

From 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.

No more coal. Right now the only way carbon is permanently lost from the ecosystem is from ocean crustacean shells being lost to the bottom of the ocean. Interestingly enough, before humans started freeing carbon, the ecosystem was in a period of all time low for available carbon.

Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener

#123

Post by swish_bob »

fooker wrote: post #85
imtringued wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, not again. Coal came from plants in an era where microbes could not yet decompose plants.

Peat is the first step in forming coal. Peat still forms under the correct conditions, so coal can still be formed.

Conditions might be rarer, but the steps aren't solely reliant on the absence of microbes which now exist.

Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener

#124

Post by hirundo »

setgree wrote: post #119

> “When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilization from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to more leaf growth in northern forests, for instance. Now, with the MODIS data that lets us understand the phenomenon at really small scales, we see that humans are also contributing.” That global warming may induce more agriculture, and fo…

What Rising CO2 Means for Global Food Security: http://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Rising_CO...

Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener

#125

Post by hannob »

hirundo wrote: post #124
setgree wrote: post #119

> “When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilization from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to more leaf growth in northern forests, for instance. Now, with the MODIS data that lets us understand the phenomenon at really small scales, we see that humans are also contributing.” That global warming may induce more agriculture, and fo…

What Rising CO2 Means for Global Food Security: http://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Rising_CO...

The CO2 Coalition is a pseudoscientific climate denial organization.

Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener

#126

Post by lazyjones »

The USA, EU and Mexico apparently also managed to increase leaf area significantly without any extensive greening initiatives. The larger version of the global map shows this clearly, even though it doesn't look noteworthy in the (somewhat ambiguously labeled "... Greening Due To Human Activity") bar chart:

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/gl...

Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener

#127

Post by marcosdumay »

setgree wrote: post #119

> “When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilization from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to more leaf growth in northern forests, for instance. Now, with the MODIS data that lets us understand the phenomenon at really small scales, we see that humans are also contributing.” That global warming may induce more agriculture, and fo…

I doubt anybody really knows.

It is well known that CO2 improves plants growth. It is also well known that plants grow better within a narrow band of temperatures.

Increasing both the CO2 contents of the atmosphere and Earth's temperature will have some complex results where on the places within that temperature band, plants grow slightly faster, on places that cross from too cold into the band plants grow much faster, and on places that cross from that band into too hot plants will grow much slower.

Also, solar incidence has a much larger effect than CO2 concentration, so the places with best growth rate can only cross into the too hot region, and polar places crossing into the good temperatures can't really compensate (besides, there isn't much area at the polar regions, unless you are talking about the hole Antarctic getting green).

And, anyway, water availability has a much larger effect than solar incidence, and this one is completely chaotic. So, good luck getting any conclusion.

Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener

#128

Post by nell »

setgree wrote: post #119

> “When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilization from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to more leaf growth in northern forests, for instance. Now, with the MODIS data that lets us understand the phenomenon at really small scales, we see that humans are also contributing.” That global warming may induce more agriculture, and fo…

Read Matt Ridley’s lukewarmer argument.

Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener

#129

Post by cowwithbeef »

FriedPickles wrote: post #18

From 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.

>this fact is usually omitted so as not to complicate the intended message.

That sounds a lot like intentionally misleading people.

Re: Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener

#130

Post by setgree »

nell wrote: post #128
setgree wrote: post #119

> “When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilization from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to more leaf growth in northern forests, for instance. Now, with the MODIS data that lets us understand the phenomenon at really small scales, we see that humans are also contributing.” That global warming may induce more agriculture, and fo…

Read Matt Ridley’s lukewarmer argument.

have done so, and I like http://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/global-warming, recommended by Megan McArdle.

In particular I'm interested agricultural and dense growth projections in the North (and South?). The above stuff covers this only in passing to my recollection.

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