Jun 09 2008
In Praise of CO2?
Sorry to any comments that got caught in the spam and moderation queues. I decided to take a week off from the whole blogging scene (including reading other blogs) because it was starting to get in the way of stuff that needed to get done. I’ll try to get around to replying to all the comments soon.
Anyway, a week off and when I open Google Reader, one of the first blog posts in from MT, Denialists Convincing Selves of Biodiversity Increase. The original source is Lawrence Solomon from the Financial Post. Like all good journalists (including CNN, NPR, and FOX), there is no link or citation to the journal article upon it was based.
I was feeling like doing some easy detective work, and there were clues scattered in the piece. Most notably two of the authors, Running and Nemani, and the year, 2004. It wasn’t long before I found it, A Continuous Satellite-Derived Measure of Global Terrestrial Primary Production. I wasn’t really certain I had found the right journal article until I came across this in the FP,
Until the 1980s, ecologists had no way to systematically track growth in plant matter in every corner of the Earth — the best they could do was analyze small plots of one-tenth of a hectare or less.
which sounded a lot like this in Running et al.,
Before the 1980s, biology focused on the organism level, and ecological studies, at best, embraced a 0.1-hectare (ha) field plot.
Hmm. Plagiarism?
Reading more from Reading;
Global surface meteorology. The NASA Data Assimilation Office (DAO) collects data from all available surface weather observations globally every 3 hours. The DAO then interpolates and grids these point data, runs a global climate model on a short time sequence, and produces an estimate of climatic conditions for the world…
Wait a second. Not only did they use the surface station data, but they relied on models too! Models = bad, right? And surface stations are unreliable because they’re all located in parking lots. So it appears that models are okay to use, and the microsite biases in the surface station temperature data are small if the conclusions are what you want to hear.
The actual conclusion that Solomon praises is that net primary production (NPP) is actually rising.
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So NPP is rising. But why?
These trends in NPP are a biospheric response to recent changes in global climate, including higher temperatures, longer temperate growing seasons, more rainfall in some previously water-limited areas, and increased radiation (a result of reduced cloudiness) in regions such as the Amazon basin. [Emphasis added.]
NASA Earth Observatory has already profiled a similar study back in 2003.
“Humans claim about half of all the net primary production on Earth,” says Myneni. “Productivity may have increased 6 percent in the last 18 years, but human population has increased by over 35 percent over that same time. One half of a 6 percent increase in the net productivity compared to a 35 percent increase in population means that these net primary productivity changes have not improved global habitability in any significant way.” [Emphasis added.]
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9 Responses to “In Praise of CO2?”
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Atmoz,
“Denialists Convincing Selves of Biodiversity Increase.”
Do the evolutionists and creationists know that someone thinks biodiversity is increasing?? ;>)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/biodiversity/
I believe the claim is BIOMASS increase.
KK has a good point. They aren’t measuring the species richness or species diversity, they are measuring increase of biomass, mostly plant biomass.
Best,
D
Here is the quote direct from Lawrence Solomon’s article and celebrated on the Watt’s Up blog and its ilk:
” As summarized in a report last month, released along with a petition signed by 32,000 U. S. scientists who vouched for the benefits of CO2: “Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier climates. Plants provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent **and diversity** of plant and animal life have both increased substantially during the past half-century.” ”
Emphasis added.
Whatever makes sense is not what is at issue. Of course it makes no sense. That doesn’t mean nobody is claiming it or believing it. Unfortunately.
I discussed the old Greening Earth Society/see-oh-too type of argument this Solomon piece is, here (albeit with a little more…verve…than I would on this blog.
IOW, it is old recycled rhetoric that depends upon mischaracterizing a paper’s findings.
HTH.
Best,
D
Yes, but is it first year biodiversity, or multi-year buildup. You know, the multi-year is thicker and tends to melt…er…grow… at a faster rate.
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