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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Global warming: are trees going on strike Yahoo... Paris (AFP) - Trees, crucial absorbers of climate-harming carbon dioxide gas, may finally be balking at an ever-earlier spring season brought on by global warming, researchers said Wednesday. Over the past several decades, trees across central Europe have been steadily sprouting their spring leaves earlier in response to warmer temperatures, they said. As a result, forests absorbed more carbon dioxide in a longer growing season -- a boon that has been worked into global warming projections. But a study published in the science journal Nature said trees have slowed their pace of seasonal advance -- raising fears it may stop altogether. The slowdown "suggests a current and possible future weakening of forests' carbon uptake due to the declining temperature sensitivity of (trees)," lead author Yongshuo Fu of Peking University in Beijing told AFP. Forests play an important role in stemming global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide -- the most abundant greenhouse gas -- from the atmosphere. For the study, an international team crunched decades of data drawn from seven common types of trees like beech, silver birch and horse chestnut at 1,245 sites in the wild ranging from Denmark to Bosnia. The authors said previous studies had relied on saplings or twigs tested in laboratory settings and not exposed to real-world changes. In real life, they found, leaf-sprouting happened steadily earlier over two study periods: 1980-1994 and 1999-2013 -- about 13 days overall over the past three decades. But when the scientists compared the two terms, they noticed the advance of earlier sprouting had slowed by 40 percent in 1999-2013. "We found the response (to earlier spring) has declined over the past three decades, and strong winter warming may further reduce it," said Yongshuo. The planet's average temperature has already risen 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) since the Industrial Revolution. The UN goal is to limit global warming to two C overall. The authors believe the trees may be trying to protect themselves against extreme weather. Many types of trees need a period of cold temperatures before they are ready to sprout spring leaves -- a hardwired mechanism to ensure winter has truly passed before they push out buds. Weather conditions have become increasingly unpredictable and the trees' slower advance "would thus reduce the risk of late spring frost damage," the study said. Poster Comment: Robert 5 hours ago 8 40 Wow, it must be really really hard to make so many mistakes in one paper. Only in climate science, I guess. The hilarity starts right in the very first sentence: "Trees, crucial absorbers of climate-harming carbon dioxide gas"... carbon dioxide is not "climate-harming". It is a required trace atmospheric gas for all life on Earth as we know it. CO2 is plant food, the only way plants can get the carbon necessary to form the molecules of life. We are all carbon-based life forms, humans included, and that carbon all comes from a plant somewhere absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere to start with. Plants grow better, stronger, faster with more CO2 in the atmosphere. Nearly all current plant life, including trees, evolved in levels of atmospheric CO2 far higher, about 5 times higher, than the extremely low levels of today. Today's levels are at geologic lows probably the result of the Little Ice Age Earth only came out of about 150 years ago. We are far closer to "carbon starvation" levels (170-180 ppm) where plant life dies due to lack of CO2 than to the levels they evolved in and prefer (1000-2000 ppm). CO2 is harmless to humans at all normal concentrations. US Navy submarines routinely run with CO2 levels up to 8000ppm, 20 times today's atmospheric level, and even up to 11,000 ppm. Here's another climate science special. Watch the pea under the pod or you'll be taken in by the alarmism... "trees have slowed their pace of seasonal advance -- raising fears it may stop altogether." Whoa, that sounds serious. Let's delve into it some. "slowed their pace of seasonal advance" actually means they are not blooming earlier each year as they had been. So they were blooming 13 days earlier than 30 years ago, and now don't look like they are going to "advance" that to 14 days and thus "raising fears it may stop altogether". Horrors! Trees may only bloom 13 days earlier than 30 years ago and NOT 14?? What on Earth shall we do? And, of course, "the trees may be trying to protect themselves against extreme weather." Right. Of course, it couldn't possibly be that the global warming of 0.8C since the Industrial Revolution stopped warming about 18 years ago and the trees stopped blooming earlier because it hasn't gotten any warmer. How about that for a good reason? I'll bet if it gets warmer they will bloom earlier, and if it gets cooler they will bloom later. "raising fears is may stop altogether" is patently stupidThen there's this flat out lie: "Forests play an important role in stemming global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide -- the most abundant greenhouse gas -- from the atmosphere. " Carbon dioxide is NOT "the most abundant greenhouse gas" in the atmosphere, not by a long shot. That is just plain a lie, or, at best an ignorant statement by a scientifically illiterate journalism major. The most abundant greenhouse gas is Water Vapor, about 200 TIMES as abundant as CO2. Water vapor is responsible for up to 90% of the greenhouse effect on Earth, with CO2 a minor player. Since the Industrial Revolution atmospheric CO2 has risen from just under 3 molecules per 10,000 air molecules to around 4 molecules per 10,000 air molecules, 1 per 10,000 atmospheric gas molecules in 150 years. While CO2 has ghg effects in theory and lab tests there is no proof that CO2 can do any dangerous warming of the atmosphere in real life when all the other climate drivers are factored in. So, trees are probably not "advancing their blooming dates" because they've advanced only so long as Earth was warming. The globe hasn't warmed in a generation. No child in high school today has experienced Global Warming. These scientists sound like they would be shocked, shocked, to find that tree lines around the world are moving north too, back to where they were before the Little Ice Age started 500 years ago. Earth's temperature cooled to record lows of all recorded human history, and thankfully, Earth has been warming, naturally since. ray 5 hours ago 11 4 in another science special, there is a BALANCE that has been disrupted... too much CO2 does much more harm than good., nort only the detrimental effects of warming, flooding and drought but also ocean acidification. Oxygen is your friend too, but in high concentrations it can be toxic... ask a scuba diver or fighter pilot 4-11 Robert 4 hours ago 0 3 @ray - omg, exactly which BALANCE are you worried about and why? too much CO2? or too many humans? The BALANCE of humans is increasing FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR faster than the balance of CO2, as is the balance of plastic, asphalt, buildings, roads, farms, airports, farm animals, you name it. The balance of chemicals in our bloodstream is increasing FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR faster than CO2, some of them bad, most good (anti-biotics, medications to keep us healthy, etc.). Not ALL balances changing is BAD. The minor change in the BALANCE (your term) of CO2 has enabled modern society as we know it to exist. Without today's modern energy use we're back to running an agrarian society with human and animal power. Do you prefer that? Don't fall for the "detrimental effects of warming" meme. Even the IPCC says, if you read the fine print, that flooding and drought prediction is nowhere near certain, so much so that they don't even know the SIGN of the change.... Yes, that's right, they don't even know if flooding or drought will be more or less, or stay the same. That's how uncertain these things are. And watch the pea under the "ocean acidification" pod. They're taking your money. The oceans are BASIC, about pH 8.2, FAR FAR FAR from being even neutral, let alone acidic (less than pH of 7.0)... Most of the CO2 on Earth is dissolved in the oceans, and not in the atmosphere. Oceans have vast buffering capability and have not been acidic even when atmospheric CO2 was over 4000 ppm, 10 X today's level. Don't let some yahoo tell you there's an "ocean acidification" problem. IF, and that's a big IF more CO2 dissolves into the oceans they may get very slightly less BASIC, but never acidic. It's not unlike a phase-change. It's basic, neutral, or acidic, and as ocean water is basic, WOW are we in real trouble that fresh water is SO MUCH MORE ACIDIC than the oceans, because it is NEUTRAL. Ask anybody that tells you the oceans are getting more acidic the following question: If you have a block of ice frozen solid at 0 degrees and you warm it up by one tenth of a degree to 0.1 degrees, how much more liquid has it gotten? The baloney that shellfish won't be able to build their carbonate shells in less basic water is garbage. Fresh water, being neutral, is far less basic (more acidic to you) than ocean water and there are plenty of fresh water shellfish. K kurt 4 hours ago 1 5 richard - Define too much CO2. Below 650 ppm plants are stressed. We are barely at 400. PLANTS ARE STRESSED. What do you have against plants? Why not at least study, if not join in with other growers who pump in CO2 into their green houses? Indoor CO2 levels are approximately twice out door levels. Indoor plants are not dying from it. At least they are allowed to freely breath indoors. R richard 4 hours ago 2 0 And you know that raising the CO2 levels and therefore temperatures around the planet at the SAME TIME will not have a dual impact, right kurt? Typical Yank to only think in terms of one variable at a time. Robert 4 hours ago 0 3 @Richard - not true at all. I have a 16 X 32 ft. sun room facing West on my home, filled with over 2 dozen plants. I would say the easiest way to kill a plant (other than not watering it) is too much water. I am not aware of any adverse effects on plants at levels up to 10 times current atmospheric concentration of 400 ppm, and as a grower you must know that prudent minimum levels for new plants is about 1000 ppm, much closer to the 2000-4000 ppm almost all C3 and C4 plant life evolved in. Current levels are far closer to the 170-180 ppm of carbon starvation, and most probably plant life on Earth today is still adversely affected by such low levels of atmospheric CO2. Certainly if atmospheric Oxygen had fallen by 80% or more we would all be dead of asphyxiation. We live in atmospheric O2 of nearly 21%. Below 18% you die. Plants evolved in atmospheric CO2 of 0.2% to 0.4% and barely survive in today's 0.04%, one-tenth what they prefer. http://news.yahoo.com/global-warming-trees-going-strike-211924785.html Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
The poster's comment is 40 times more correct then the global warming garbage you read. The primary reason is there is lots of money available if a scientist wants to do a study to prove global warming and near zero money available to finance research that disproves global warming.
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