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Scientists Surprised to Find Earth's Biosphere Booming
radioweather writes "An article from the Financial Post
says that recent studies of
biosphere imaging from the NASA SEAWIFS satellite indicate that the
Earth's
biomass is booming: 'The results surprised Steven Running of the University of Montana and
Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA satellite
data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole
became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated
landmass — almost 110 million square kilometers — enjoyed significant
increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms
in, it finds that each square meter of land, on average, now produces almost 500
grams of greenery per year.' Their 2004 study, and other more recent ones, point to the warming of the
planet and the presence of CO2, fertilizing the biota and resulting in the
increased green side effect."
In the words of Wolfgang Pauli, "this isn't right. It isn't even wrong."
First of all, an ice age is only a time when average temperatures are signficantly below present levels. Most of history for almost a million years has been an ice age; The current interglacial has lasted remarkably long.
Second of all, we are not coming out of an ice age. Earth's global temperature and sea levels began a rapid rise approximately 20Kya and both leveled off near their current values around 10 to 12Kya.
Third, the extent to which industrialization has changed the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere in the last 250 years is unprecedented in the last 600 thousand years, and if you think it's not having an effect you're either delusional or willfully ignorant.
In addition to losing oxygen, the water becomes more turbid,and the proportions of species in the community is damaged.
Some of these algal/cyanobacteria blooms are actually toxic to plants & animals. Why don't the smaller, rapidly-reproducing zooplankton take up the gauntlet? Because they suffocate near the alleged food source. That of course assumes the food source firstly isn't toxic to them.
Ever seen a dead mouse in a mouse-trap? Food surrounded by lethal conditions is hardly food. Why don't the smaller, rapidly-reproducing zooplankton take up the gauntlet?
Virtually all of the articles I've read on hypoxic waters and dead zones fail to address this paradox. I've only read one paper that
mentioned even an _hypothesis_ of how algae grazers fail to flourish -- referring to algae species that protect themselves with toxins.
But this doesn't ring true: Why would the most pioneering of algae species be the most protective of themselves when there is so much
opportunity to evolve optimizations for growth rather than defense against grazers? The evolution of life doesn't care about optimizations for growth. Evolution does not seek to form a more perfect creature. Either the environment kills it before it reproduces or it doesn't. Their goal is survival, not being efficient at it. An organism's life can be amazingly cruel and miserable, yet still perfectly succeed in this function. Optimizations and perfections aren't on the agenda unless the consequence of not adopting such things is extinction.
It's very simple, unthinking, and without any sort of goal orientation save for existing. If the algae can exist successfully without such optimizations, they will continue to do so. Kinda like how massive numbers of people will continue to buy large inefficient vehicles until gas gets expensive. They could have used optimized & efficient vehicles, but they don't unless they perceive it to be absolutely necessary to get by.
First of all, note that the auhtor here does have an agenda. From the end of the article:
"Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers"The book he wrote does make a clear statement about how he feels about the current debate.
In any event, none can say that this development is linear. Beyond a certain point, maybe the balance between heating caused by CO2 and the increased plant consumption looks very different, and turns around. The complexity of these systems are not to be underestimated, and reading this article as "Some more CO2 might be good for us!", or at least reading it as a excuse not to do anything (like all those SUV owner might), would be bad.
This is ./. That means that TFA is an empty placeholder or, at best, pointing to a vapid bit of text between ads.
In this case however, a few levels down it appears that the science behind the journalism is decent enough, for instance:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/300/5625/1560
and
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1645290
Yes. It's one of many self-regulating systems you'll find in nature. It's negative feedbacks like this that keep the climate stable-ish. If a volcano belches out a vast cloud of carbon, the trees will devour it, and not much will change overall. Read up Lovelock's 'Gaia' theory: modelling the Earth's whole biosphere as a distributed organism, and its interconnected feedbacks as homeostatic mechanisms that stabilise internal conditions.
Trouble is that we're putting out far more carbon than any volcano ever dreamed of. And, er... we're cutting down the trees at the same time. That's really not a good idea.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
As soon as a living dies all the trapped CO2 is released during the deceasing of the corpse. To actually trap it forever you have to close it off from any oxygene, then it might turn into coal or oil again.
Stating objectively verifiable facts is not trolling, fucktard mod. Sea levels are confirmed as haven risen some inches between 1900 and 2000, and are likely to rise half a foot to a foot this coming century (assuming no catastrophes like the collapse of the Ross ice shelf), which would endanger numerous low-lying islands in the Pacific.
Nope, not Israel, nope not the Palestinians, nope not Iran....it was
Britian and France.
Look it up.
My blog
Obviously you're not familiar with the apocalyptic danger posed by ocean acidification. Here are the highlights: the bulk of CO2 we release into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels does NOT go into the atmospheric and create climate change; rather, is absorbed by the ocean, which creates carbonic acid, which lowers the ocean's pH. Among other nasty side effects, this reduces the available calcium carbonate in seawater, which both makes it harder for animals to grow and maintain shells and skeletons. This is a problem from microscopic (think planktonic diatoms) to the macroscopic (think blue whales).
Ocean acidification is a vastly larger problem that changes in weather, because it affects the entire marine ecosystem worldwide from top to bottom. Slightly warmer or colder continental weather is no big deal, and even adjusting to rising sea levels is probably managable not only for people but for wildlife. But a collapse of ocean ecosystems is going to be a seriously bad day for everyone.
I'm a moderate rightist, and I approve this message.
This is why a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
A-Bomb