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It could be that clouds are also helping to turn down the heat. It's been
calculated that a 10% increase in the amount of low-level cloud could
completely cancel the warming that is typically predicted to occur as a
result of a doubling of the air's CO2 content. How? By reflecting more solar
radiation back to space. It's also been shown that the warming-induced
production of high-level clouds over the equatorial oceans almost totally
nullifies the powerful greenhouse effect
of water vapour there. Just as the human body sweats when it's hot as a
means of cooling down, nature might have it's own self-cooling system.
Warm weather creates more clouds to keep the heat in check.
Now climatologists from the United States and Australia say "global dimming"
is partially counteracting the effects of "global warming," according to news
reports. They say less sunlight is getting through the atmosphere because
of water vapor put into clouds by global warming. Air pollution is also holding
back some of the sun's rays. This means less heat enters Earth's
atmosphere to begin with.
While a full discussion of global warming science is beyond the scope of this
analysis, it is worth noting that science is now taking a turn away from
alarmism.[13] The release of carbon dioxide, a natural constituent of the
atmosphere and a byproduct of fossil fuel combustion, has at least some
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warming effect on the planet,[14] but the reality of global warming falls well
short of being a crisis. Both the seriousness and the imminence of the threat
have been overstated by environmentalists and politicians alike.
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With such massive policy implications and so little firmly- settled science, the
global warming issue has at times brought out questionable behavior in
scientists, institutions, agencies, and politicians. Some scientists have made
comments, both in public and in private, that suggest to me that their
scientific judgement is clouded by their adherence to a catastrophic global
warming paradigm. In the political realm, Vice President Gore's book "Earth in
the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit" makes it clear that Mr. Gore has a
philosophical and spiritual adherence to the global warming paradigm. The
IPCC, of course, had the famous flap over their Summary for Policymakers
sounding much more alarmist than the scientific body of their report could
justify. In the science publication process, there seems to be an increasing
number of instances where the editorial process has clearly favored the
publishing of pro-global warming papers over those that do not support a
catastrophic view of global warming. Climate catastrophe is always more
interesting, and thus more newsworthy, so the public receives a skewed view
of the state of the science.
The sun's effect on climate: One factor global warming theorists ignore is the effect that
the sun's changing activity may have on the global temperature. A brighter sun may
cause the global temperature to rise, and vice versa. Dr. Baliunas, in the Wall Street
Journal letter referenced above, explained how the sun's activity can be measured by
the length of the sunspot cycle (the shorter the cycle, the more active the sun). Dr.
Baliunas' letter included a chart showing a close correlation between changes in the
length of the sunspot cycle and Northern Hemisphere land temperature for 1750-1978.
In addition, the record may potentially be biased because most of the evidence comes
from cities, where temperatures may be as much as 6-8 degrees higher than the
surrounding countryside. This problem is based on the heat-retaining ability of dark
surfacing materials in roads and buildings and the reduction in tree cover that often
occurs with development.
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Thousands of respected scientists reject the theory that global warming is human-induced and
will lead to disastrous climate change. Much of the mainstream media, however, ignore
differences of opinion about climate among scientists and fail to report evidence proving that no
catastrophic global warming is occurring.
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Finally, it should be mentioned that in looking for natural factors influencing the climate, a new
area of research centers on the effects of the sun. Twentieth century temperature changes show
a strong correlation with the sun's changing energy output. Although the causes of the sun's
changing particle, magnetic and energy outputs are uncertain—as are the responses of the
climate to solar changes—the correlation is pronounced. It explains especially well the early
twentieth century temperature increase, which, as we have seen, could not have had much
human contribution. [See Chart 5, illustrating the change over four centuries of the Sunspot
Number, which is representative of the surface area coverage of the sun by strong magnetic
fields. The low magnetism of the seventeenth century, a period called the Maunder Minimum,
coincides with the coldest century of the last millennium, and there is sustained high magnetism
in the latter twentieth century.
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After several years of sharp decline, light reflected from earth back into space
from 2001 to 2003 returned to pre-1995 levels, perhaps because of increased
cloud cover and thickness. If this reversal continues, it could play an
important role in future climate change - if more solar energy is bounced
back into space, the surface would be cooler.
"The 'cooling' effect of the thick clouds is much stronger than the net
'heating' effect of the thin clouds," Dutch scientists and climate skeptics Hans
Labohm, Simon Rozendaal and Dick Thoenes, wrote in their recent book,
"Man-Made Global Warming: Unravelling a Dogma."
The trio continued: "Also the thick clouds represent a much larger water
mass. Therefore, water evaporation followed by condensation has a net
'cooling' effect."
Clouds will cool the climate rather than warm the climate. When you try to
warm the ocean, I argued and the argument is still sound you evaporate more
water and create more clouds and this reduces the amount of solar radiation.
What you have is a kind of negative feedback which keeps the temperature
from rising very much.
Brent Sohngen of Ohio State University and Robert Mendelsohn of the Yale School of
Forestry and Environmental Studies have estimated that the U.S. timber market
would benefit from climate change by less than 1 percent to more than 10 percent of
the current value of American forests (Sohngen and Mendelsohn 1996). British
researcher J. L. Innes, for the Forestry Commission in Surrey, United Kingdom, reports
that over the last 100 years, forests have expanded "in areas as far apart as southern
Patagonia and northern Finland. As growth ... is primarily controlled by temperature,
it seems likely that climatic change is involved" (Innes 1994, 239). The IPCC has
projected that global forest area could increase as much as 9 percent (IPCC 1996).
If nature withdraws its helping hand--if the carbon sinks stop absorbing some
of our excess carbon dioxide--we could be facing drastic changes even before
2050, a disaster too swift to avoid. But if the carbon sinks hold out or even
grow, we might have extra decades in which to wean the global economy
from carbon-emitting energy sources. Some scientists and engineers believe
that by understanding natural carbon sinks, we may be able to enhance them
or even create our own places to safely jail this threat to global climate.
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But the urbanization effect is difficult to remove from the end of the record. What is
more, these thermometric surface air temperature estimates are fraught with other
problems as well, including the lack of data in remote and oceanic areas, changes in
the network over the past century, changes in instruments and observation practices,
and microclimatic changes near the weather equipment, such as a growing tree near
a weather station.
The bottom line is that Jones and the IPCC have largely removed the urban effect
when it dominates a temperature record for many decades. But for the last 10 or 15
years, no known method exists to get rid of it. The urban effect is here, and it will
grow exponentially.
Another major problem with the data is that, as cities grow and pave more of their
area with asphalt and cement, heat is trapped, thus raising local readings. In other
words, the data collected from urban sites are subject to the "heat island" effect.
Although climatol-ogists claim to have adjusted for this bias, questions remain about
whether the record can accurately portray world temperature changes.
Enric Palle, another researcher at Big Bear and lead author of the new report,
said Earth's surface temperature is determined by a number of factors,
including the amount and makeup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
"But these new data emphasize that clouds must be properly accounted for
(in the computer models) and illustrate that we still lack the detailed
understanding of our climate system necessary to model future changes with
confidence," he said.
3. Global climate computer models are too crude to predict future climate
changes. All predictions of global warming are based on computer models,
not historical data. In order to get their models to produce predictions that
are close to their designers’ expectations, modelers resort to “flux
adjustments” that can be 25 times larger than the effect of doubling carbon
dioxide concentrations, the supposed trigger for global warming. Richard A.
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Kerr, a writer for Science, says “climate modelers have been ‘cheating’ for so
long it’s almost become respectable.”
According to the EPA Web site, the latest computer models for the Earth's
climate predict a high degree of uncertainty regarding how much global
warming is caused by burning fossil fuels. This uncertainty is not surprising
when one considers the difficulty in modeling the interaction between air
currents, ocean currents, cloud formation, greenhouse gases and changes in
the solar energy received from the sun.
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No Runaway Warming
No risk of runaway greenhouse effect:
Robert Ehrlich, 2003 (Eight preposterous propositions: from the genetics of
homosexuality to the benefits of global warming; pg.186-187)
At first glance this is doubtless the scariest global warming pronouncement made by
a scientist of Karl's stature. But it has generated a chorus of negative reviews from
other luminaries, including NASA's James Hansen, whose current position is very
close to that expressed in this book; once greenhouse warming starts, it takes place
at a constant rate.
41). Other periods experienced two to four times current levels of CO2 with some
warming. Scientists have been unable to determine whether the warming preceded
or followed the rises in carbon dioxide. For virtually all of the period from around 125
million to about 75,000 years ago, CO2 levels were markedly higher than now.
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Weather scientists may have found a climate trend that is cooling the surface
of the Earth and partially counteracting global warming. 1 Global warning
puts more water vapour in clouds, making them more opaque. 2 Air
pollutants also block the sun's rays. 3 Less solar energy reaches the ground.
* ALSO CALLED SOLAR DIMMING. EFFECT IS ABOUT HALF AS STRONG AS
GLOBAL WARMING
Still, the dimming trend, noticed by a handful of scientists two decades ago
but dismissed at the time as unbelievable, is now attracting wide attention.
Research on global dimming and its implications for weather, water supplies
and agriculture will be presented next week in Montreal during a joint
meeting of American and Canadian geological societies. "There could be a
big gorilla sitting on the dining table, and we didn't know about it," said
Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of climate and atmospheric sciences
at the University of California at San Diego. "There are many, many issues
that it raises." James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space
Studies in New York City, said scientists had long known that pollution
particles reflected some sunlight, but they now are realizing the magnitude of
the effect. "It's occurred over a long time period, so it's not something that
perhaps jumps out at you as a person in the street," Hansen said. "But it's a
large effect."
The rest of the dimming is due to increasing air pollution - minute particles in
the atmosphere known as aerosols. This problem affects the world, not just
smoggy cities such as Houston and Los Angeles. For example, NASA
scientists reported in early May that air pollution can travel on high-speed
winds from the Indian Ocean clear across the Pacific and into the southern
Atlantic. "When I fly from New York to California, I see very high brownish
layers. That's old aerosol layers hanging on," Liepert said. "As we get more
aerosols and more warming, we get more dimming."
New research shows that much less sunlight is reaching the earth than 50
years ago. "Global dimming", as it has inevitably become called, has been
suspected for nearly 20 years, since a Swiss geography researcher, routinely
checking sunshine levels across Europe in 1985, found that they had
dropped, even on the brightest days. Studies all around the world found
similar results, showing drops in sunlight ranging from 2 to 37 per cent since
the 1950s. The research, published in Science, is the first to prove that the
dimming is a global phenomenon. Scientists at the New Jersey and California
Institutes of Technology remembered how Leonardo da Vinci had worked out
that the dark side of the moon was illuminated by sunlight reflected from the
Earth. By measuring this "Earthshine" they worked out that the world is about
10 per cent darker than half a century ago.
"Initially, people were very skeptical, but now there's other pieces of evidence
that all fit together," Roderick told a radio interviewer. Reductions in sunlight
of 10% to 20% have been observed in many places over the last 50 years, he
said. "We still face a lot of controversy, but it's (solar dimming) getting
accepted," Liepert said in a telephone interview. "We've found it in the United
States, Europe, Israel and Asia. Already, major research institutions are
changing their point of view."
The findings, reported on Friday in the journal Science, add a new level of
mystery to the recent debate about "global dimming" and its causes.
Measurements by ground-based instruments have shown a decrease of up to
10 percent in sunlight between the late 1950s and early 1990s.
Tracking the brightness of Earth by looking at its reflection on the Moon, scientists
have concluded that sunshine on Earth brightened in the 1990's, then dimmed
after 2000. The findings, being reported today in the journal Science, add a new
level of mystery to the recent debate about ''global dimming'' and its causes.
Measurements by ground-based instruments around the world have shown a
decrease of up to 10 percent in sunlight from the late 1950's to the early 1990's.
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What causes global dimming? Scientists think smoky pollution plays a big
part. Tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere can reflect or absorb
incoming sunlight before it reaches the ground. This promotes formation of
bigger, more persistent and more reflective clouds that less readily condense
into rain, said Beate G. Liepert, an atmospheric physicist at Columbia
University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatoryin Palisades, N.Y.
Industrialized regions have dimmed the most. For example, Israel's coastal
plain now gets 30 percent less solar radiation than 50 years ago, Stanhill
said. Ramanathan found that vast brown hazes generated in Asia and
hanging over the Indian Ocean and the Himalayas can cut surface sunlight by
as much as 30 percent.
When sulfates were added to the greenhouse mix, the model results were
dramatically improved. Sulfates are produced primarily in the midlatitudes of the
Northern Hemisphere as a byproduct of fossil fuel combustion. Unless they are
specifically removed, most fossil fuels include some sulfur compounds that form
sulfur dioxide when burned. This breaks down to sulfate, a finely divided particle that
reflects away the sun's radiation and also helps to enhance cloudiness a bit. (Of the
fossil fuels, natural gas produces little or no sulfate, and coal produces the most.)
No one is predicting that it may soon be night all day, and some scientists
believe the skies have brightened in the past decade as the suspected cause
of global dimming, air pollution, has lessened in many parts of the world.
The output of the Sun varies only slightly, so scientists believe global
dimming has probably resulted from air pollution. Some light bounces off soot
particles in the air. The pollution also causes more water droplets to condense
out of air, leading to thicker, darker clouds, which block light. For that reason,
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When increases in greenhouse gases only are taken into account . . . most GCMs
produce a greater mean warming than has been observed to date, unless a lower
climate sensitivity is used. . . . There is growing evidence that increases in sulfate
aerosols are partially counteracting the [warming] due to increases in greenhouse
gases.
At least in part, aerosols (small particles) produced by industry, volcanoes, and other
sources can offset an increase in greenhouse gases (Kerr 1995a). Although the
particles remain in the atmosphere a relatively short time, while there they do
reflect solar energy back into space (IPCC 1995d). After the 1992 volcanic
eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, which spewed huge amounts of sulfates into the
atmosphere, the world cooled noticeably for several years. Researchers have
attributed the failure of the world's temperature to rise as much as predicted to
sulfates produced by industry. Aerosol concentrations can make clouds more
reflective, thus increasing their cooling effect.
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The human contribution of carbon dioxide has indeed been increasing for about 200
years, with the largest changes, about 75 percent of the total greenhouse effect
change, occurring since World War II. Eventually the plants, animals, and ocean will
capture and sequester that amount, but it takes time. Studies of atomic bomb tests
show it takes about 10 years for vegetation to capture the "average" molecule. But
then some of that same carbon is recycled as the vegetation burns or is consumed
and respired by an herbivore. No one really knows how long the average residence
time turns out to be, but median estimates range from about 30 to 80 years.
Environmentalists like to cite the latter figure, conveniently rounding up to a hundred
years (so that the IPCC can call carbon dioxide a "century-scale" emission, as it did in
its 1999 Special Report on Aviation and the Atmosphere). But the true median figure
is considerably below this value.
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Sea levels and surface waters. Climate change theory suggests that as global
temperatures increase, sea levels will rise, based on the thermal expansion of water
and the melting of glaciers, ice sheets, ice caps, and sea ice. Some recent studies
indicate that sea levels have risen about 7 inches over the last 100 years, but
estimates range from 4 to 10 inches. Also, though global warming has theoretically
been accelerating, there is little evidence that sea-level rise has accelerated
accordingly.
As noted, the forecasts of climate change have shrunk in recent years as a result of
the incorporation of the role of aerosols into the models (see Table 1-5). With
somewhat lower temperatures predicted, forecasts of rising sea levels have also
fallen. Since climate change is likely to produce more precipitation worldwide, it is
likely to contribute to the buildup of ice in Antarctica, which, by itself, should lower
sea levels. The warmer oceans will, however, expand. The net result could be either a
small fall in the oceans or a rise of perhaps one to three feet by the end of the next
century (Schneider 1997).
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http://www.co2science.org/subject/questions/1998/110198q12.htm
As in the case of Information Sheet 10, this information sheet contains so many
stated or implied inaccuracies that it too will be discussed, point by point, in its
entirety. · Biological diversity -- the source of enormous environmental, economic,
and cultural value -- will be threatened by rapid climate change. There is little
empirical evidence to suggest that the rising CO2 content of earth's atmosphere will
induce rapid climate change over the next century. But even if the planet warms as
predicted, the contemporaneous rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration will act to
maintain, if not enhance, biological diversity.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/b/summaries/biodiversity.htm
http://www.co2science.org/subject/b/summaries/biodiversity.htm
Another route by which atmospheric CO2 enrichment may actually increase the
species richness of an ecosystem begins with CO2-induced increases in the exudation
of organic matter into the soil, which phenomenon, according to the study of Hodge
et al. (1998), stimulates the proliferation of previously-dormant but viable
microorganisms, including symbiotic soil fungi. These fungi, in turn, are highly
selective in the species of plants they tend to support, as observed by van der
Heijden et al. (1998a). In fact, van der Heijden et al. (1998b) demonstrated that
increasing the number of fungal species in the soils of certain artificial ecosystems
from 4 to 14 increased ecosystem plant diversity by 60%.
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http://www.co2science.org/subject/b/summaries/biodiversity.htm
In conclusion, it would appear that we need not worry about the ongoing rise in the
air's CO2 content negatively impacting the biodiversity of earth's many ecosystems.
If it is to influence genetic diversity and species richness in any way, it will in all
likelihood be to enhance these desirable biospheric properties.
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Nevertheless, the loss of a class of living beings does not typically threaten other
species. Most animals and plants can derive their nutrients or receive the other
benefits provided by a particular species from more than a single source. If it were
true that the extinction of a single species would produce a cascade of losses, then
the massive extinctions of the past should have wiped out all life. Evolution forces
various life forms to adjust to change. A few may not make the adaptation but
others will mutate to meet the new conditions. Although a particular chain of DNA
may be eliminated through the loss of a species, other animals or plants adapting to
the same environment often produce similar genetic solutions with like proteins. It is
almost impossible to imagine a single species that, if eliminated, would threaten
us humans. Perhaps if the £. coli that are necessary for digestion became extinct,
we could no longer exist. But those bacteria live in a symbiotic relationship with man
and, as long as humans survive, so will they. Thus any animal that hosts a symbiotic
species need not fear the loss of its partner. As long as the host remains, so will
parasites and symbiotic species.
If that is so, the rivet analogy may have some validity. But Davidson cautions that
research in this area is still in its infancy, and that "it is unclear that biodiversity
loss will lead to ecosystem collapse." Therefore, he argues, the tapestry
metaphor offers a more useful view of reality.
Although people do like the concept of a globe inhabited by many different types of
animals and plants, the value of any one or even many is not large in benefits
provided to [sic hu]mankind. The Greek chorus of doomsayers grossly overstates
the value of biodiversity. Their exaggerated veneration of each and every species
leads to mistaken policy and needless expense.
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Being skeptical about the vital importance of maintaining every single species is
tantamount to being against motherhood—at least before Paul Ehrlich convinced the
world that babies were bad—so one is reluctant to question the importance of species
diversity. Nevertheless, the usefulness of any one species, at least as a potential
pharmaceutical, is probably low. Although the number of species on the globe is
unknowable, it is certainly large: it has been estimated to be at least 10 million, of
which scientists have identified about 1.4 million, about half of which are insects
(Simpson et al. 1996,176; UCS 1997). Among plants, there is considerable
duplication in the production of chemical substances. Many creatures and plants
have similar needs and consequently manufacture comparable compounds.
As a result, identical drugs or comparable drugs can be produced from different
species, either because evolution has led to the independent development of very
similar chemicals in various species or because closely related plants or animals
produce comparable compounds. The number of other plants or animals that produce
like chemicals affects the worth of any one species. If many varieties of plants
produce the same compound, the importance of anv one kind is minimal.
Moreover, if a species is found over a wide range, its value in any one area will be
limited (Simpson et al. 1996). If all animals or plants in that species produce the
chemical, additional individual members are redundant. Consequently, the worth of
preserving any particular region that harbors the valued plant or creature may be
very small.
found in other species and with existing known drugs. Finally, synthetic drugs
based on inorganic chemicals often can be just as effective.
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http://www.co2science.org/subject/questions/1998/110198q12.htm
This information sheet begins by stating how current climate zones would shift
poleward in latitude and upward in altitude for a given amount of warming. With this
claim we have no argument. However, we do have a problem with the declaration
that these climatic changes will necessarily lead to changes in "the composition and
geographic distribution of unmanaged ecosystems," especially when these changes
are suggested to lead to species extinctions.
As we have already outlined in our discussion of Point 2 of Information Sheet 10, the
temperatures at which plants perform at their optimum generally rise with an
increase in atmospheric CO2; and a number of theoretical and experimental studies
have demonstrated that for 95% of earth's vegetation (its C3 plants), the increase in
plant optimum temperature that would accompany a 300 ppm increase in the air's
CO2 content would likely be even larger than the predicted temperature rise for the
worst-case scenario of CO2-induced global warming. Hence, even if the planet
warmed as predicted for a doubling of the air's CO2 content, the great bulk of earth's
vegetation would "prefer" those warmer conditions; and there would be no reason
for it to migrate poleward or upward.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/questions/1998/110198q12.htm
In addition, the other 5% of earth's plant life (its C4 and CAM plants) is already
adapted to earth's warmer environments (De Jong et al., 1982; Drake, 1989; Johnson
et al., 1993), which are expected to warm much less than the other portions of the
globe (Houghton et al., 1996); and those plants may also experience an increase
(albeit more modest) in their optimum temperatures in response to an increase in
atmospheric CO2 (Chen et al., 1994). Furthermore, warming itself often produces
upward shifts in plant optimum growth temperature (Seeman et al., 1984; Veres et
al., 1984; El-Sharkawy et al., 1992). Clearly, therefore, a warming of the globe
would not produce the impetus for plant migration that is often put forth as a
reason for believing that earth's biodiversity would be threatened by an increase in
atmospheric CO2 concentration. Yet this is only the beginning of the story; for a
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number of studies have actually directly addressed the effects of atmospheric CO2
enrichment on ecosystem biodiversity.
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Global warming cannot be blamed for the spread of communicable tropical diseases.
Prior to the nineteenth century, when the world was cooler, tropical diseases such as
malaria and yellow fever abounded in the United States. In today's warmer world,
however, malaria and yellow fever are rare in the United States— although similar
illnesses are relatively common in Mexico. Overall, outbreaks of tropical disease have
been on the decline globally. The epidemics that do occur in some regions are the result
of poverty and poor medical care—not global warming.
Over the past few years the media have reported that one possible effect of global
warming will be the expansion of tropical, communicable diseases borne by rodents or
parasites into the United States. Fortunately, even if a warmer climate is in the offing,
there is no reason for alarm, since the prime factor controlling communicable diseases is
not global temperature, but relative wealth and the ecological and medical interventions
people use to control diseases and their hosts.
While these and other tropical disease outbreaks are troubling, historical evidence and
current medical data from the WHO indicate that they don't portend the spread of
communicable diseases. A warm climate is a necessary condition for the mosquitoes
that can carry malaria and dengue fever but is not a sufficient condition for the diseases
to become epidemic.
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Using the UKMO climate model, they found that increasing greenhouse gas
concentrations led to decreasing soil moisture levels in midlatitudes in the Northern
Hemisphere during the summer months but increasing levels of soil moisture in the
winter. Mitchell and Warrilow concluded that the representation of the physical
properties of the soils was critical to the response of soil moisture to increasing
planetary temperature. Specifically, they showed that the numerical routines
designed to handle runoff from frozen soils were quite important in determining
expected trends in soil moisture levels. Despite the rather leading title of their article,
the authors provide many reasons to question the validity of earlier results on
drought.
All of these scary predictions beg for a comparison with reality. If there is a
substantial disconnection between the two, what does that say about all the model-
based results? As with so many other areas in the global warming debate, there is
considerable evidence arguing against the prediction of increased drought in the
central United States. Here we find a classic problem: voluminous literature
predicting an increase in drought conditions as the greenhouse gas concentration
increases; and yet, during the past century (and during a time of considerable
greenhouse gas buildup), a trend away from drought and toward more moist
conditions in the North American interior. What the models characterized as an
inevitability simply has not happened. Figure 7.7 shows the percentage of the United
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States that has experienced severe to extreme drought conditions each year since
January 1895. There is no long-term trend in this record.
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Casual analysis of the economic effects of climate change demonstrates that most
modern industries are relatively immune to weather. Climate affects principally
agriculture, forestry, and fishing, which together constitute less than 2 percent of U.S. gross domestic
product (GDP). Manufacturing, most service industries, and nearly all extractive industries remain
unaffected by climate shifts. Factories can be built in northern Sweden or Canada or in Texas, Central
America, or Mexico. Higher temperatures will leave mining largely untouched; oil drilling in the northern
Banking, insurance, medical services,
seas and mining in the mountains might even benefit.
retailing, education, and a variety of other services can prosper as well in warm
climates (with air conditioning) as in cold (with central heating). A warmer climate will
lower transportation costs; less snow and ice to torment truckers and automobile
drivers; fewer winter storms to disrupt air travel—bad weather in the summer has fewer
disruptive effects and passes quickly; a lower incidence of storms and less fog will make shipping less risky.
Fuel consumption for heating will decline, while that for air conditioning will increase.
Rising sea levels would, of course, impose costs on low-lying regions, including a
number of islands and delta areas. For the United States—assuming a three-foot rise
in sea level, at the high end of predictions for the year 2100—economists have
estimated the costs of building dikes and levees and the loss of land at $7 billion to
$10.6 billion annually, or less than 0.2 percent of GDP (Cline 1992,109).
The last two chapters discussed the 1974 U.S. Department of Transportation's
findings on how climate affected health care expenditures and preferences of workers
for various cities. The third gathering, held in February 1974, examined the
implications of climate change for the economy. The DOT study brought together scholars from
around the world (Broderick and Hard 1974). They included researchers from the following institutions:
American Geophysical Union, Boston College, Boston University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Colorado
State University, Cornell University, Florida State University, Harvard University; Illinois Institute of
Technology Research Institute, Institute for Defense Analysis, Lawrence Liver-more Laboratory, Los Alamos
Scientific Laboratories, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mitre Corporation, National Academy of
Sciences, National Resource Council of Canada, New York University, North Dakota State University, Ohio
State University, Pennsylvania State University, Princeton University, RAND Corporation, Rice University;
Sandia Laboratories, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Stanford Research Institute, Stanford University,
Temple University, University of Colorado, University of California at Los Angeles, University of California at
Riverside and at Berkeley, University of Florida, University of Kentucky, University of Illinois, University of
Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Missouri, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rhode
Island; University of Texas at Dallas, University of Washington, University of Wyoming, Utah State
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University, Wayne State University, Yale University; and in addition several Canadian, French, Russian,
a comprehensive body
Polish, Japanese, and other foreign universities and research institutes. Clearly
of researchers contributed to the project. Table 5-1 summarizes the findings of the
DOT research. The numbers have been brought up to 1990 levels to reflect inflation
over the period. As may be seen, cooler weather would be costly for the United
States, while a warmer climate would produce small but positive benefits.
Those who promote a negative vision of climate change will, when pressed, usually
admit that the planet did not warm as originally predicted. But they often cite the
IPCC's statements about "more severe droughts and/or floods" and a "discernible
human impact on global climate" as indicators that weather has become more
variable and people are to blame. As a result, a slew of recent reports (the most
recent, as of this writing, being NBC Nightly News on January 4, 2000) would have us
believe that the increase in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide will
produce an increase in the overall variability of climate, thus exposing us to more
climate extremes. Though it is true that a few modeling studies suggest that an
increase in variability is possible given a buildup of CO2, others suggest a decrease.
More important, the observed evidence generally shows a decrease in variability.
Gregory and Mitchell published one of the most telling papers on this subject in 1995
in the Quarterly journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. They concluded that
changes in variability could differ greatly from season to season and were highly
dependent upon local physical processes. Under doubled carbon dioxide conditions,
their numerical experiments revealed decreases in temperature variability in Europe
in winter as a result of reduced land-sea thermal contrast, but variability increased in
summer because of surface heat balance. Complex temperature variability results,
like those found in Europe, could be expected in other parts of the world. Basically, it
is difficult to look at the various model results on this issue and conclude that
temperature variability will increase in the future.
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Tom Karl, now director of the U.S. National Climatic Data Center, wrote in Nature in
1995 that an increase in CO2 should decrease temperature variability; indeed he and
colleagues R. W. Knight and N. Plummer found that day-to-day variability during the
20th century is down in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in the United States
and China. In another paper published in 1997 in Scientific American, Karl stated that
"projections of the day-to-day changes in temperature are less certain than those of
the mean, but observations have suggested that this variability in much of the
Northern Hemisphere's midlatitudes has decreased as the climate has become
warmer. Some computer models also project decreases in variability."
Consequently, this book begins with the raging flood of the Red River of the North in
1997 and the attempts to relate it to global warming. Several other examples follow.
In fact, many events that global warming is reputed to cause should become less
frequent as the temperature rises.
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Since trees appear to be the most responsive of all plants to atmospheric CO2
enrichment, it is only natural to expect we would already be seeing evidence of their
benefiting from the 100 ppm increase in the air's CO2 content experienced since the
inception of the Industrial Revolution. Idso confirms this expectation as well, with
information gleaned from 33 publications originating from all parts of the world; and
he cites a number of other studies that confirm the planet-wide range expansions
that would be expected of woody plants under such circumstances.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/questions/1998/110198q12.htm
Will mortality increase with rising temperatures? Death rates during periods of
extremely hot weather have jumped in certain cities, but above-normal mortality has
not occurred during all hot spells or in all cities. Moreover, research concerned with
"killer" heat waves has generally ignored or downplayed the reduction in fatalities
that warmer winter months would bring.
Recent summers have sizzled. Newspapers have reported the tragic deaths of the
poor and the aged on days when the mercury reached torrid levels. Prophets of doom
forecast that rising temperatures in the next century portend a future of calamitous
mortality. Scenes of men, women, and children collapsing on hot streets haunt our
imaginations. Happily the evidence refutes that dire scenario. First, however, let us
review the documentation supporting the supposition that human mortality will rise
with rising temperatures. Death rates during periods of very hot weather have
jumped in certain cities, but above-normal mortality has not been recorded during all
hot spells or in all cities. Moreover, research concerned with "killer" heat waves has
generally ignored or downplayed the reduction in fatalities that warmer winter
months would bring.
Researchers analyzing hot days and deaths have found no constant relationship;
even when extremes in weather and mortality are correlated, the relationship is
inconsistent. Cities with the highest average number of summer deaths are found in
the Midwest or Northeast while those with the lowest number are in the South
(Kalkstein and Davis 1989, 56). Typically analysts have failed to find any relationship
between excess mortality and temperature in southern cities, which experience the
most heat (Kalkstein 1992, 372). Other studies have found that people who move
from a cold to a subtropical climate adjust within a very short period (Rotton 1983).
No, and despite the suggestions of a summer blockbuster, the day after tomorrow won't arrive next week,
Don't expect to see, any time soon, tornadoes decimating
next month or next year.
Southern California landmarks; deadly ice chunks falling from the sky;
oceanic currents shutting down; or global superstorms that launch a new ice
age. Fun as all that might be, such cinematic scenarios are based on fuzzy
science and shorthand exaggerations. And as much as Weather Watch
applauds "The Day After Tomorrow" for potentially raising awareness of global
warming, we fear that the movie could, so to speak, cloud the issue. If people
think the reason to fight global warming is to stave off the extremely remote
possibility of a continent-wide superstorm, they need to defog their windows.
There's plenty going on today, not the day after tomorrow, that is cause for concern. When freak events
global warming is more
become frequent, like in the movie, the need for action is obvious. But
like a termite infestation than an earthquake, and the link between
meteorological oddities and global warming is often hard to convincingly
establish.
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Stormy weather. Climate change theory suggests that a warmer Earth would have more
frequent heat waves, cold snaps, tornadoes, thunderstorms, dust storms, and so on. But
these predictions have not been borne out on a global scale. In their last published
review of the total body of evidence, IPCC investigators concluded that "overall, there is
no evidence that extreme weather events, or climate variability, have increased, in a
global sense, through the twentieth century."
Coming to a theatre near you on Memorial Day is "The Day After Tomorrow", a
movie intended to convince those foolish enough to see it that global
warming will lead to a new ice age in America. As science fiction goes, this is
as fictional as one can get because there is absolutely no scientific basis for
the story this movie depicts.
There is much controversy about the theory that global climate change is driven strongly
by human activities. Ice masses include glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and sea ice.
From the records of explorers, climate investigators know that many of the world's
glaciers have shrunk over the last 100 years. Even so, the IPCC's climate investigators
admit that "continuous, long-term measurements of the mass balances of glaciers and
ice caps are very limited."
They further note that while some evidence suggests shrinkage of the ice sheets of
Green-land and the Antarctic, other data suggest that the sheets are growing. There is
also evidence that they may be doing both: growing on top and shrinking at the edges.
Finally, it appears that neither hemisphere has experienced a change in the area of
ocean covered by floating sea ice (such as icebergs) since 1973, when satellite
measurements began.
The fact is, the largest cause of glacial melting is a prolonged warming of summer
daytime temperatures, but winter warming is the hallmark of the enhanced-
greenhouse era, and winter temperatures have no effect on melting. It is during
summer days that temperatures on the glaciers tend to reach above freezing.
By far, most of the world's ice is contained in the vast sheets over Antarctica and
Greenland. If those regions were to release large volumes of water, drastic sea-level
rise would indeed occur. But temperatures in those places are extremely low, with
only the margins and southern portions of Greenland subject to any melting at all
during the course of a year. Even future warming scenarios do not change that fact.
With higher temperatures, though, more moisture is available in the atmosphere,
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and more snowfall occurs in those regions. The result is net snow and ice
accumulation in the cold areas, which include nearly all of Antarctica and the
interior portions of central and northern Greenland.
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The most important conclusion is that there is a water crisis, not because
there is an objectively insoluble problem, but because certain political
leaders want to use this issue for their own ends, as discussed by
geologist Arie Issar. If there is a water war, it will not be the water that
caused the war. Rather the war will be due to belligerence that was in
search of an issue, and helped perpetuate the water crisis as an
excuse for war.
http://www.gci.ch/GreenCrossPrograms/waterres/middleeast/wolf.html)
This paper investigates the reality of historic water conflict and draws lessons for the
plausibility of future "water wars." The datasets of conflict are explored for those
related to water only seven minor skirmishes are found in this century; no war has
ever been fought over water. In contrast, 145 water-related treaties were signed
in the same period. These treaties, collected and catalogued in a computerized database along with
relevant notes from negotiators, are assessed for patterns of conflict resolution. War over water
seems neither strategically rational, hydrographically effective, nor economically
viable. Shared interests along a waterway seem to overwhelm water's conflict-
inducing characteristics. Furthermore, once cooperative water regimes are
established through treaty, they turn out to be tremendously resilient over time,
even between otherwise hostile riparians, and even as conflict is waged over other
issues. These patterns suggest that the more valuable lesson of international water is
as a resources whose characteristics tend to induce cooperation, and incite
violence only in the exception.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/questions/1998/110198q12.htm
http://www.co2science.org/subject/questions/1998/110198q12.htm
This bullet point suggests that "a warmer climate will contribute to the decline of
wetlands." How can that be, if the climate models predict more precipitation in a
CO2-enriched world at the same time that they say that deserts are not projected to
become wetter (Point 4 of this information sheet). Where else can this extra
precipitation fall but on average and wetter-than-average lands? And what feeds
wetlands? It is the drainage from average and wetter-than-average lands, not
deserts. So, again, how could CO2-induced global warming contribute to the decline
of wetlands?
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http://www.co2science.org/subject/b/summaries/biodiversity.htm
http://ciesin.columbia.edu/docs/004-041/004-041.html)
In addition, Mitchell flunks history: around 6,000 years ago the earth sustained
temperatures that were probably more than 4° Fahrenheit hotter than those of the
20th century, yet [sic hu]mankind flourished. The Sahara desert bloomed with plants,
and water-loving animals, such as hippopotamuses, wallowed in rivers and lakes.
Dense forests carpeted Europe from the Alps to Scandinavia. The Midwest of the
United States was somewhat drier than it is today, similar to contemporary western
Kansas or eastern Colorado; but Canada enjoyed a warmer climate and more rainfall.
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The remaining reason, according to Fan, is the fertilization effect carbon dioxide has
on plants. An overwhelming body of evidence shows the rising levels of
atmospheric CO2 are most favorable for the production of food and forests. CO2 acts
as a fertilizer, increasing plant growth rate and mass by increasing photosynthetic
capacity. It increases plant water use efficiency and drought tolerance as well as
performance under low light conditions and in high temperatures. Carbon dioxide
also increases plants' abilities to grow in the presence of environmental hazards
imposed by soil alkalinity, mineral stress, atmospheric pollutants, and UV-B radiation.
the evidence is
dioxide into the atmosphere, thus speeding the rate and magnitude of a global warming. Beneath all of this rhetoric,
that the rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are very favorable for the
most essential of human activities, and oujr most important renewable resource,
namely the production of food. Not many people think of it in this way, but food,
climate, and the rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are uniquely interrelated.
Food production is a critical and an essential renewable resource. Without food, the
human race would not survive. The production of this renewable resource, upon
which all life depends, is possible only through photosynthesis, the most important
of bichemical processes. An essential raw material, almost always in short supply; is
the low level of atmospheric carbon dioxide. For example, an acre of corn crop must
process over 40,000 tons of air to produce the record yeild of more than 130 bushels
per acre recorded in the United States for 1995. Globally; some 25 crops stand
between people and starvation. The largest single food group is the cereal grains,
of which corn is a leading member. They provide approximately 60% of the calories
and 50% of the protein consumed by the human race. The legumes provide about
20% of the world's protein. The balance of calories, protein, and essential vitamins and minerals is obtained from tuber and
root crops and various fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Food animals, deriving their food either directly or indirectly from plants, provide 20% of
the protein with 5% coming from fish. The most determinant factor in agricultural (food) production is weather or the climate. For agriculture,
climate must be managed both as a resource to be used wisely ont he one hand and a hazard to be dealt with on the other. Food production is
very much a function of climate, which in itself is unpredictable. In fact, the principal characteristic of climate is variability. Predictive climate
changes derived from computer simulations are far from accurate and may be deceptive even with the most advanced modeling. Volcanoes,
cloud cover regional characteristics, and changing of atmospheric components currently cannot (and may never) be successfully factored into
an accurate climate model. From the perspective of food security, the stability of agricultural production is an important, if not more so, than
the magnitude of output. Climate variability has a greater impact on agricultural productivity--both its magnitude and stability--than does
climate change. Extremes in weather, rather than averages, affect agriculture. Both crops and livestock are sensitive to weather over
relatively short periods of time. Annual averages of temperature and rainfall do not convey short-term deficiencies, which impact both the
lining in the growing cloud of atmospheric CO2 that may warm the planet is more
raw material for photosynthesis" (Waggoner, 1994).
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The story that emerges from the world's vegetation is one of remarkable internal
consistency. Carbon dioxide makes plants grow better—whether the temperature
stays the same or rises, whether plants encounter stress or not, and especially when
it rises coincidentally with stress. Altering the greenhouse effect causes climate
change to occur primarily in the cold half of the year, resulting in a lengthening of the
growing season. Rainfall is increasing slightly. All of these circumstances can only
make the planet greener.
It makes no sense. It tells people, "This is a problem after all." Why would you
want to sequester carbon dioxide? To do so implies carbon dioxide is bad
when it's not bad, it's good. We should have more carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere. It's good for plants. It makes them grow faster.
For the present, the direct effects of an increasing atmospheric CO2 on food
production and the outputs of rangelands and forests are much more
important than any effects thus far manifest for climate. A recent review of
over 1,000 individual experiments with 475 plant crop varieties, published in
342 peer-reviewed scientific journals and authored by 454 scientists in 29
countries, has shown an average growth enhancement of 52% with a
doubling of the current level of atmospheric carbon dioxide (Idso and Idso,
1994: Wittwer, 1995).
Wittwer discusses hundreds of experiments that have confirmed that rising levels of
atmospheric CO; have enhanced plant growth, total plant output, and the yields of all
the major food crops (cereals, legumes, roots and tubers, sugar crops, fruits, and
vegetables). In his estimation, global agricultural output has increased 8 percent to
12 percent in the last 50 years due solely to the rising levels of atmospheric
CO2.
In a recent review of the scientific literature (165 references), Craig Idso (2001)
describes a number of proven biological consequences of elevated atmospheric CO2
concentrations that are well worth recounting.
Idso begins his essay with an overview of basic plant responses to atmospheric CO2
enrichment. The best known of these biological impacts is probably CO2's aerial
fertilization effect, which works its wonders on plants that utilize all three of the
major biochemical pathways of photosynthesis (C3, C4, CAM). In the case of
herbaceous plants, Idso notes this phenomenon typically boosts their productivity by
about a third in response to a 300 ppm increase in the air's CO2 content, while it
enhances the growth of woody plants by 50% or more.
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In the United States, the picture is much the same. Figure 10.2 shows the historical
record of soybean yields in Illinois, a large producer of this crop, and of the
temperature history there during the past three-quarters of a century. Figure 10.3
shows the same for corn in Iowa; Figure 10.4, for wheat in Kansas. Everywhere, the
picture is the same. Yields continue to increase, primarily as a result of technology,
but undoubtedly elevated atmospheric CO2 levels have helped as well. Global
temperature rise and global yields for combined corn, soybeans, and wheat—the
major crops—are rising. Iowa and Kansas temperatures stay the same, and yields of
corn and soybeans rise. Illinois temperatures fall, and soybean yields rise.
Consider it good fortune that we are living in a world of gradually increasing levels of
atmospheric CO2. The effects of this increase on food production are far more
important than any putative change in climate. Elevated CO2 levels also
provide a cost-free way of conserving water, which is rapidly becoming another of the
world's most limited natural resources, much of it for crop irrigation. According to
Sylvan Wittwer, CO2 is a "universally free premium" that enhances crop growth
without additional inputs. Figure 10.5 shows the extremely strong statistical
relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global crop yields.
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In many parts of the world, warmer weather should mean longer growing
seasons. Should the world warm, the hotter climate would enhance evaporation from
the seas, leading most probably to more precipitation worldwide. Moreover, the
enrichment of the atmosphere with CO2 would fertilize plants and make for more
vigorous growth. Agricultural economists studying the relationship of temperatures
and CO2 to crop yields have found not only that a warmer climate would push up
yields in Canada, Australia, Japan, northern Russia, Finland, and Iceland but also that
the added boost from enriched CO2 fertilization would enhance output by 17
percent (Wittwer1995, 1997).
http://www.co2science.org/subject/questions/1998/110198q12.htm
As we have already outlined in our discussion of Point 2 of Information Sheet 10, the
temperatures at which plants perform at their optimum generally rise with an
increase in atmospheric CO2; and a number of theoretical and experimental studies
have demonstrated that for 95% of earth's vegetation (its C3 plants), the increase in
plant optimum temperature that would accompany a 300 ppm increase in the air's
CO2 content would likely be even larger than the predicted temperature rise for the
worst-case scenario of CO2-induced global warming.
Next comes plant water use efficiency, which may be defined as the amount of
organic matter produced per unit of water transpired by the plant and lost to the
atmosphere. This vegetative parameter is directly enhanced by the aerial
fertilization effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment, as well as by its anti-transpirant
effect, which is produced by reductions in the number density and degree of
openness of leaf stomatal openings that occur at higher atmospheric CO2
concentrations. Here, too, CO2-induced percentage increases as large as - or, more
typically, even larger than - those exhibited by plant productivity are commonplace.
Of all the natural climate hazards, drought is what farmers fear most. The
lack of water is the single greatest impediment to plant growth and
global food production. This is illustrated by the fact that today, irrigated
cropland--about 17% of the world's total--produces one-third of the
agricultural output. For the United States, the 12% of the cultivated farm land
that is irrigated, accounts for 37% of crop production. U.S. agriculture
consumes, mostly through irrigation, 80 to 85% of the nation's fresh water
resources. For the world, it is more than 65%. The most readily identifiable
potential climate impact of significant magnitude on future living standards of
the human race is availability of water resources. The efficiency of
their use will be a major key to future food security.
In a higher CO2 world, most plants would probably not be at risk. Although the
temperature may well rise, an environment richer in carbon dioxide is likely to
stimulate plant growth. Moreover, higher CO2 levels induce a more efficient use of
water in plants and make them more drought resistant. In addition, most models
suggest that, worldwide, rainfall should increase. It would be perverse to assume that
additional precipitation would fall only over the oceans.
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http://www.co2science.org/subject/questions/1998/110198q12.htm
When much of their foliage was removed in a simulated grazing event, however, the
plants exposed to elevated CO2 directed greater quantities of nitrogen back to their
remaining leaves, where they could make better use of it and hasten the production
of new foliage. This chain of events suggests that atmospheric CO2 enrichment may
help plants better withstand, as well as recover from, the debilitating effects of
having their foliage eaten by either livestock or pests, even under conditions of
less-than-optimum soil fertility.
As everyone knows, plants, using the energy of light, remove carbon dioxide from the
air and synthesize it into plant fiber in a process called photosynthesis. Plant
respiration is the process by which plants consume this plant material to maintain
life. Enhancing atmospheric CO2 levels increases the efficiency of photosynthesis and
markedly reduces plant respiration. Using less energy in the respiration process
means that more energy can be allocated to growing larger. As far as agricultural
crops are concerned, this increased efficiency results in increases in total dry weight,
root growth, higher root-top ratios, leaf area, weight per unit area, leaf thickness,
stem height, branching and seed, and fruit number and weight. This improvement
makes for an increase in marketable product as well as an overall shortening of
maturing time—reducing both water and pesticide requirements and
expanding geographic growth range.
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http://www.co2science.org/subject/b/summaries/biodiversity.htm
Studies of weed responses to elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 tell much the same
story. Wayne et al. (1999) detected a stimulatory effect of CO2 on the growth of the
weedy field mustard plant; but it was no greater than the CO2-induced growth
enhancement experienced by most crops. On the other hand, the major bracken
weed of the United Kingdom and elsewhere has proven totally unresponsive to
atmospheric CO2 enrichment (Caporn et al., 1999); and in a study of pasture
ecosystems near Montreal, Canada, Taylor and Potvin (1997) found that elevated CO2
concentrations had no influence the number of native species returning after removal
to simulate disturbance, even in the face of the introduced presence of a normally
noxious weed of those ecosystems.
Considered in their entirety, these observations provide no substantive basis for believing that
C3 plants will outcompete C4 plants and drive any large portion of them to extinction as the
air's CO2 content continues to rise. If anything, they point to the tantalizing possibility that
both types of plants will fare even better in the future than they do now, and that they may
actually help each other to some degree, given the way that opportunities for cooperation
among species arise more often with elevated C02-induced increasing root growth and fungal
networking below ground.
http://www.co2science.org/edit/v4_edit/v4n43edit.htm)
And we still feel that way. CO2 is the elixir of life. It is one of the primary raw
materials - the other being water - out of which plants construct their tissues;
and it is essential to their existence and our existence. Without more of it in
the air, our species - as well as most of the rest of the planet's animal life -
will not survive the 21st century intact. The biosphere will continue to
exist, but not as we know it; for most of its wild diversity of life will have
been extinguished by [sic hu]mankind's mad rush to appropriate ever more
land and water to grow the food required to feed itself (Tilman et al., 2001).
But non-Europeans are vulnerable too, and not just those along the. eastern
shores of North America (and elsewhere around the world where
repercussions of the Younger Dryas have been detected). Abrupt and
widespread agricultural shortfalls in densely populated technological
societies tend to suggest lebensraum-style global conflict. Affected
populations will initially switch (as they have during brief droughts of the
past) to themselves eating the feed grains that now produce meat at 20
percent efficiency - but remember how poorly an "economic response' worked
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for Ireland in the nineteenth-century famine. Another cold spike need not
endure for 800 years to exhaust stockpiles and people's patience. Just
imagine any country affected by the North Atlantic Current contemplating
starvation - while possessing the military technology needed to take
over another country (which will undoubtedly be described by the
aggressors as 'irresponsibly squandering its agricultural potential while others
starve").