Carbon Pollution Touched 800,000 Year Record in 2016, WMO Says (bloomberg.com)

Carbon dioxide levels surged to their highest level in at least 800,000 years because of pollution caused by humans and a strong El Nino event, according to the World Meteorological Organization. From a report: Concentrations of the greenhouse gas increased at a record speed in 2016 to reach an average of 403.3 parts per million, up from 400 parts per million a year earlier, the WMO said in a statement on Monday warning of "severe ecological and economic disruptions." The WMO said the last time the Earth had a comparable concentration of CO2s, the temperature of the planet was 2 degrees to 3 degrees Celsius warmer and sea levels were 10 meters to 20 meters higher than now.

Comments

Re:I 3 Global Warming

[GameboyRMH]

"CO2 is plant food," a stupid argument to use in favor of global warming considering CO2's other negative effects - especially the reduction in arable land, isn't even right in itself.

More accurately, CO2 is plant junk food. Higher CO2 levels produce less nutritious crops:

http://www.nature.com/nature/j...

Re:I 3 Global Warming

[deviated_prevert]

Food plants can't tolerate a desert.

Lucky then that climate change causes increased evaporation and probably overall increased precipitation.

The highest food producing areas of Western North America in California, which by and large rely upon water from systems that are slowly but surely being effected by less and less rainfall on the mountains of West Coast

And, again, good thing that climate change is here to help.

The rose coloured glass effect in spades. The fly in the ointment with this belief is that the areas that are warming the most are not receiving increased rainfall and will not, unless the patterns of the jet stream and continental weather streams change drastically. The arid deserts are not about to change suddenly into agricultural land, neither will the areas with the greatest biomass in the form of peat bogs and a cold climate desert ecology. The territories in Canada and the northern sections of the provinces are not suitable for agriculture and will not suddenly become arable lands, the fools that spout off about the benefits of global warming are exactly that FOOLS. Yes we will be soon able to send oil tankers through the North West Passage and drill the hell out of areas of the Arctic. Yes there are huge areas of fertile prairie which is quickly losing the permafrost but most are are based upon an acidic top soil that will not produce our chosen food stuffs or support adequate grass for grazing animals for centuries until many cycles of grass fires can change the top soil ph. This is how our prairie grain lands are created and is how they will eventually be created in some more northernly areas of North America

Some of the areas just south of the permafrost have already been used for Northern agriculture in a very recent time frame. The Peace River region is one example, but these areas have had centuries to adjust to the loss of the permafrost.

Unless the arm chair scientists claiming that global warming will increase food production have a way to change the polar rotation of the earth there is absolutely no way to increase the growing seasons of the North which around the 60th parallel is 3-4 months of frost free temperatures and enough daylight to grow plants.

Even more importantly, FYI what it takes to raise a cow on grass and forage plants at the 60th and even down to Dawson creek at 55.7596 N is more in monetary terms of feed than the animal will bring at market. Most cattle grown there are stock produced first or trucked in then range fed, then trucked out to then be market fattened in the production feed lots in southern Alberta before going to market. Also the animals must be housed during the coldest months in a heated barns to avoid them losing too much fat and muscle mass to the cold. The range season there much shorter than in Montana even if the winters are not much colder they are much longer. The low cost of natural gas in Canada is the only thing that makes cattle ranching there possible.

Traditional agriculture does not work in most of Canada and Russia and the fools who believe it will are living with rose coloured glasses that blind them to the realities of the environment of the north and what it takes to live and work there. Productive prairies are slowly created by cycles fire and grass and the slow warming since the last ice age. Prairie agricultural lands will not and cannot be magically created by man made global warming.