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Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide (2017)

noaa.gov

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Re: Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide (2017)

#81

Post by morpheos137 »

kortex wrote: post #63
colechristensen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 30% bump in plant carbon sinking isn't a small bump, it's a major negative feedback control on atmospheric carbon. Some people seem to have the attitude that if you aren't saying something negative about an environmental topic, you shouldn't be saying anything.

Sure, it's better than nothing. But carbon output has increased X% compared to pre-industrial times, where X is some mind-boggling number.

Atmospheric CO2 has increased by roughly double since the industrial revolution. I.e. 100%. I don't find that mind boggling.

Re: Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide (2017)

#82

Post by bryan0 »

alecst wrote: post #47
bryan0 wrote: post #11

How do climate change models currently account for increase in plants? Are these plant growth numbers in line with expectations? Is this a large change or a rounding error in those models?

I heard John Baez call this "CO2 fertilization". And it's been talked about for a while. Hard to predict the effect, but the consensus seems to range from "could help, sorta" to "not really important". https://www.azimuthproject.org/azimuth/show/Carbon+dioxide+f... > The details of CO2 fertilization matter a lot. It could make the difference between their original plan being roughly good enough… and being nowhere nea…

Wow thanks for this link. I’m familiar with John baez’s writings on physics and category theory, I didn’t realize how deep he went into climate change though.

Anyway after reading this I think I can answer my original questions a bit: Yes increased plant growth is a critical and part of climate change models. IPCC is predicting an increase of 6G tons of carbon consumed by plants by 2050 and without this we could not hit our carbon goals. Hopefully this research shows that our models are not overestimating here.

Re: Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide (2017)

#83

Post by Robotbeat »

morpheos137 wrote: post #51
Robotbeat wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for plants, but not necessarily for humans. Human mental performance seems to reduce at higher CO2 levels, which makes sense as humans (by any definition... behaviorally modern humans ~50,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans 300,000 years ago, the overall genus homo within about 2 million years) have never experienced CO2 levels near the current level, let alone what they may be by the end of the century. P…

Do you got a source for the idea that human mental preformance suffers in the the hundred ppm CO2 range? I don't see how it would since the body has homeostatic mechanisms. CO2 has only increased by several hundred ppm since the industrial revolution. Maybe you are confusing CO2 with CO which has completely different biochemistry (it binds more efficiently with hemoglobin than oxygen and or does not release as easily…

No, I'm not confusing CO for CO2.

Yes, I do have sources that human mental performance suffers at elevated CO2 levels (800-1000ppm, not uncommon in buildings... but could be the CO2 level outdoors and even if it's not quite that high, it'll be harder and harder to keep building CO2 levels below that as external CO2 levels increase). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-018-0055-8

https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1510037

Current levels aren't really problematic except in stuffy buildings. But if we don't stop changing the chemistry of the atmosphere, it becomes a problem.

Re: Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide (2017)

#84

Post by cosmojg »

edrxty wrote: post #41
colechristensen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 30% bump in plant carbon sinking isn't a small bump, it's a major negative feedback control on atmospheric carbon. Some people seem to have the attitude that if you aren't saying something negative about an environmental topic, you shouldn't be saying anything.

It's more that it's an unspoken thing. Those of us who understand these issues aren't going out of our way to provide an excuse for dissonance to the masses or worse, easily misrepresented ammunition for the talking heads. The underlying systems are obviously complex but the end result is simple and society is currently having a hard time processing things that aren't simple.

> The underlying systems are obviously complex but the end result is simple and society is currently having a hard time processing things that aren't simple.

How do we fix this? Why is society having such a hard time processing things that aren't simple?

Re: Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide (2017)

#85

Post by yongjik »

coder-3 wrote: post #43
edrxty wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more that it's an unspoken thing. Those of us who understand these issues aren't going out of our way to provide an excuse for dissonance to the masses or worse, easily misrepresented ammunition for the talking heads. The underlying systems are obviously complex but the end result is simple and society is currently having a hard time processing things that aren't simple.

The lack of openness is transparency is precisely what causes "the masses" to distrust experts about these issues. In my opinion, just saying that 'this is the effect that we found, the current consensus is that the effect is minor but more research is needed' is a more honest and a more effective way of getting "the masses" on the side of truth.

> The lack of openness is transparency is precisely what causes "the masses" to distrust experts about these issues.

Considering that climate scientists have seen their emails hacked, quote-mined, and used to produce climate FUD (not to mention global harassment campaign), I have to say nah, not really.

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2019/nov/09/climateg...

Re: Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide (2017)

#86

Post by dr_dshiv »

kibwen wrote: post #23
Nbox9 wrote: post #18

We’ve known about this effect for awhile. Tree growth has increased on volume but decreased in density since the industrial revolution[0]. A small bump in plant growth can not be seen as anything but the smallest of a silver lining. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037811271...

Saving people a click for the abstract: "Forest stand growth dynamics in Central Europe have accelerated since 1870 due to a rise in temperature, extended growing seasons, and other components of climate change. Based on wood samples from the oldest existing experimental plots in Central Europe, we show that the dominant tree species Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) H.Karst.), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), Europea…

Hmm, that doesn't shout "plants absorb 30% more CO2 than we thought" as discussed in this thread.

Re: Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide (2017)

#87

Post by colechristensen »

cosmojg wrote: post #84
edrxty wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more that it's an unspoken thing. Those of us who understand these issues aren't going out of our way to provide an excuse for dissonance to the masses or worse, easily misrepresented ammunition for the talking heads. The underlying systems are obviously complex but the end result is simple and society is currently having a hard time processing things that aren't simple.

> The underlying systems are obviously complex but the end result is simple and society is currently having a hard time processing things that aren't simple. How do we fix this? Why is society having such a hard time processing things that aren't simple?

People are as dumb as you treat them.

You simply have to stop optimizing for the lowest common denominator and push things out that you think some people won't understand.

Small children are perfectly capable of understanding very complex things, just ask a kid about pokemon or whatever kids are into these days and you'll be able to find huge pockets of complexity all over the place.

Treat people like they're dumb and can't understand anything that doesn't fit into a headline though... and they'll get accustomed to that.

The biggest targets should be news room editors trying to sell ads.

Re: Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide (2017)

#88

Post by [deleted] »

raducu wrote: post #71
morpheos137 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that on earth the two main carbon sinks are biomass and the oceans. I believe these sinks make up almost 100% of natural carbon sequestration. So it could be a big amount. I'd check the carbon cycle wiki article.

But is biomass a permanent sink or just a temporary buffer? I mean every year we keep pumping more carbon into the atmosphere, but unless biomass turns into coal, it is just a temporary buffer for carbon, right?

[deleted]

Re: Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide (2017)

#89

Post by unishark »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #86
kibwen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saving people a click for the abstract: "Forest stand growth dynamics in Central Europe have accelerated since 1870 due to a rise in temperature, extended growing seasons, and other components of climate change. Based on wood samples from the oldest existing experimental plots in Central Europe, we show that the dominant tree species Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) H.Karst.), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), Europea…

Hmm, that doesn't shout "plants absorb 30% more CO2 than we thought" as discussed in this thread.

I read that abstract twice and still can't parse it, but the 30% number comes from the noaa.gov website quote:

"A new study published in the April 6 edition of the journal Nature concludes that as emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels have increased since the start of the 20th century, plants around the world are utilizing 30 percent more carbon dioxide (CO2), spurring plant growth."

...by the way perhaps not more than we thought (dunno?), but more than the 19th century.

Re: Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide (2017)

#90

Post by morpheos137 »

Robotbeat wrote: post #83
morpheos137 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you got a source for the idea that human mental preformance suffers in the the hundred ppm CO2 range? I don't see how it would since the body has homeostatic mechanisms. CO2 has only increased by several hundred ppm since the industrial revolution. Maybe you are confusing CO2 with CO which has completely different biochemistry (it binds more efficiently with hemoglobin than oxygen and or does not release as easily…

No, I'm not confusing CO for CO2. Yes, I do have sources that human mental performance suffers at elevated CO2 levels (800-1000ppm, not uncommon in buildings... but could be the CO2 level outdoors and even if it's not quite that high, it'll be harder and harder to keep building CO2 levels below that as external CO2 levels increase). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-018-0055-8 https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.12…

It would be interesting if the study could be duplicated. More importantly it does not seem to distinguish between the acute effect of a sudden increase in CO2 in an experimental setting and the chronic effect of gradually rising ambient rates over the span of years. It stands to reason that the body would adapt to higher CO2 levels over longer time ranges vs. just injecting a sudden pulse of 2500 ppm into a closed chamber.
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