As Our Planet Gets Greener, Plants Are Slowing Global Warming
Duh!
Boston University via phys.org / Jan 21, 2020
Chi Chen, a Boston University graduate researcher, and Ranga Myneni, a BU College of Arts & Sciences professor of earth and environment, released a new paper that reveals how humans are helping to increase the Earth’s plant and tree cover, which absorbs carbon from the atmosphere and cools our planet. The boom of vegetation, fueled by greenhouse gas emissions, could be skewing our perception of how fast we’re warming the planet.
The science . . . was settled . . . ?
Taking a closer look at 250 scientific studies, land-monitoring satellite data, climate and environmental models, and field observations, a team of Boston University researchers and international collaborators have
. . . has . . .
illuminated several causes and consequences of a global increase in vegetation growth, an effect called greening.
In a new study, published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, the researchers report that climate-altering carbon emissions and intensive land use have inadvertently
“inadvertently” is an awful, un-scientific word, implying intent. “Unexpectedly” would be a large impovement . . . but that would reveal their agenda, and their excuse for their misleading predictions.
greened half of the Earth’s vegetated lands. And while that sounds like it may be a good thing, this phenomenal rate of greening, together with global warming, sea-level rise, and sea-ice decline, represents highly credible evidence that human industry and activity is dramatically impacting
. . . . “impacting” in a good way, or a bad way?
An “impact” can be good or bad, can it not?
Why do we only hear of adverse impacts — unless their opposites are buried (and dismissed)?
the Earth’s climate, say the study’s first authors, Shilong Piao and Xuhui Wang of Peking University.
Green leaves convert sunlight to sugars while replacing carbon dioxide in the air with water vapor, which cools the Earth’s surface. The reasons for greening vary around the world, but often involve intensive use of land for farming, large-scale planting of trees, a warmer and wetter climate in northern regions, natural reforestation of abandoned lands, and recovery from past disturbances.
. . . Excellent outcomes for humans, all!
And the chief cause of global greening we’re experiencing? It seems to be that rising carbon dioxide emissions are providing more and more fertilizer for plants, the researchers say.
. . . Hooray!
As a result, the boom of global greening since the early 1980s may have slowed the rate of global warming, the researchers say, possibly by as much as 0.2 to 0.25 degrees Celsius.
[Greta frowns]
Wasn’t that amount supposed to trigger doomsday scenarios?
“It is ironic that the very same carbon emissions responsible for harmful changes to climate are also fertilizing plant growth, which in turn is somewhat moderating global warming,” says study coauthor Dr. Jarle Bjerke of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research.
… What do you mean “ironic”? Wasn’t that predicted? By everyone? Literally, everyone?
Boston University researchers previously discovered that, based on near-daily NASA and NOAA satellite imaging observations since the early 1980s, vast expanses of the Earth’s vegetated lands from the Arctic to the temperate latitudes have gotten markedly more green.
Hooray!
“Notably, the NASA [satellite data] observed pronounced greening during the 21st century in the world’s most populous and still-developing countries, China and India,” says Ranga Myneni, the new study’s senior author.
Hooray!
Even regions far, far removed from human reach have not escaped the global warming and greening trends. “Svalbard in the high-arctic, for example, has seen a 30 percent increase in greenness [in addition to] an increase in [summer temperatures] from 2.9 to 4.7 degrees Celcius between 1986 and 2015,” says study coauthor Rama Nemani of NASA’s Ames Research Center.
Hooray!
“Plants are actively defending against the dangers of carbon pollution by not only sequestering carbon on land but also by wetting the atmosphere”
Hold on, there, pardner. I thought that we’ve been told that water vapor is a far, far — far — more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide!
“through transpiration of ground water and evaporation of precipitation intercepted by their bodies,” says study coauthor Philippe Ciais, of the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
Oh, France. That explains it.
“Stopping deforestation and sustainable, ecologically sensible afforestation could be one of the simplest and cost-effective, though not sufficient, defenses against climate change,” he adds.
What about planting more crops?
It is not easy to accurately estimate the cooling benefit from global greening
— and you can take this to the bank from the “the science is settled” crowd” —
because of the complex interconnected nature of the climate system, the researchers say.
. . . Which has been settled . . .
“This unintended benefit
Again, it is not unintended, it is — (to be charitable) — “unforeseen.”
Now, the benefit having been seen, here comes the non sequitur:
of global greening, and its potential transitory nature, suggests how much more daunting, and urgent, is the stated goal of keeping global warming to below 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius
Why? If this “unintended benefit” is a benefit . . . why stop it?
It’s kind of like the fact that paper production requires large numbers of trees, hence the need for vast managed forests. The trees convert CO2, in addition to the fact that managed forests are far less susceptible to forest fires. Both consequences are neither unforseen, nor inadvertent.
As much as I’d like to believe this, isn’t Boston University the college that Alexandria Occasional-Cortex learned her economic policies from? Makes me a bit hesitant.