Plants temporarily halted the acceleration of rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, new research suggests.
From 2002 through 2014, CO2 levels measured over the oceans climbed from around 372 parts per million to 397 parts per million. But the average rate of that rise remained steady despite increasing carbon emissions from human activities, researchers report online November 8 in Nature Communications. After pouring over climate measurements and simulations, the researchers attribute this steadying to changes in the relative amount of CO2 absorbed and released by plants.
The work is the first to clearly demonstrate that plants can affect the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 over long time periods, says study coauthor Trevor Keenan, an earth systems scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Still, human emissions remain the dominant driver of CO2 levels, he says. "If we keep emitting as much as we are, and what we emit keeps going up, then it won't matter very much what the plants do."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 12 2016, @10:03PM
the acidification of the ocean is a real problem.
death or coral reefs means more beach erosion and loss of habitat.
this attempt to make is seem as if anthropogenic co2 isn't a problem is disheartening.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 12 2016, @10:58PM
While deniers will certainly spin this as yet another straw they can gasp at to pretend there is no problem (disheartedly awaiting the callow crue to swoop in), it is important for those of us who live in a fact-based reality to pay attention to all high-quality research. These findings don't really say much, these plants will release the absorbed CO2 once they die and decay, so at best its only a CO2 buffer, not an actual CO2 sink.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday November 13 2016, @02:08AM
These findings don't really say much, these plants will release the absorbed CO2 once they die and decay, so at best its only a CO2 buffer, not an actual CO2 sink.
Unless, of course, the decay doesn't completely happen and they are indeed in large part a CO2 sink. I think for someone to assert that they care about facts and then assert the above without said facts is a bit hypocritical.
Also, as my title implies there is a big distinction between fact and evidence. Evidence distinguishes between hypotheses. Facts need not do so. You can spew facts at me all day. But if they don't distinguish your hypothesis from alternatives (such as the hypothesis that from a cost/benefit analysis, we don't need to act on climate change for a century or more).
as yet another straw they can gasp at to pretend there is no problem
What does "no problem" mean here? I think global warming and ocean acidification are indeed problems. But I don't think they are near future problems. And thus, we have much bigger problems to worry about that some far future, adverse climate change. But all you have to do is provide evidence not opinions that I'm wrong.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @06:37AM
Hey look, right on time with his callow sophistry and zero citations for his 'facts.'
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Sunday November 13 2016, @10:29AM
Hey look, right on time with his callow sophistry and zero citations for his 'facts.'
What do you think the role of "citation" is here? Do I need a citation to observe fallacies in other peoples' arguments? Do I need a citation to observe the distinction between "fact" and "evidence"? Do I need it for observing that asserting without evidence can be wrong as well as right? Or that someone who claims to care about "facts" and then just asserts stuff is being hypocritical?
There's a role for citations, but it's not required here because I'm not asserting anything that would require citations. I'll note for the observation about CO2 sinks versus buffers, that we already have CO2 sinks such as swamps and depositing organic matter on the sea floor. Why assume without evidence that the additional disappearing CO2 will only move into buffers not into these existing sinks?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:31AM
Why assume without evidence that the additional disappearing CO2 will only move into buffers not into these existing sinks?
Because, our dear and fluffy khallow, you did not provide any citations of any scientific studies that would suggest any such thing. See? I just called you on your fallacious reasoning, so I do not have to prove anything, and now the ball gag is in your court, so to speak. Argumentum ad Ignorantiam. Strangely appropriate for a climate change denier. Told you, tarbaby! Now Soylentils even summon you before you appear! Wow, some day we will all be as rich and famous as khallow!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 13 2016, @02:33PM
Because, our dear and fluffy khallow, you did not provide any citations of any scientific studies that would suggest any such thing.
The obvious rebuttal is that I don't have to. The current story plus my reasoning is sufficient.
Argumentum ad Ignorantiam.
The obvious rebuttal is that we were speaking of your high level of confidence in a particular assertion. An observation of ignorance of where CO2 is going indicates your confidence is misplaced. It is appropriate for the situation. Many such fallacies are appropriate arguments misapplied to situations where they are not appropriate.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday November 14 2016, @01:34AM
An observation of ignorance of where CO2 is going indicates your confidence is misplaced.
You observed a lack of knowing? Interesting. I don't know how you could have done that.
It is appropriate for the situation.
Unproven. Are we actually in the same situation?
Many such fallacies are appropriate arguments misapplied to situations where they are not appropriate.
Technically, you are correct. But here you have fallen pray to the Fallacy fallacy! Just because something is an inappropriate accusation of a fallacy does not mean it is still not a fallacy, just as not knowing where CO2 is going does not constitute a refutation of anthropogenic global warming. This is why you need to do more than the "maybe you're wrong" thing here. Because maybe you're wrong! So we need hard proof, evidence, data, peer-reviewed papers, you know, science!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 14 2016, @08:13AM
Technically, you are correct. But here you have fallen pray to the Fallacy fallacy! Just because something is an inappropriate accusation of a fallacy does not mean it is still not a fallacy, just as not knowing where CO2 is going does not constitute a refutation of anthropogenic global warming. This is why you need to do more than the "maybe you're wrong" thing here. Because maybe you're wrong! So we need hard proof, evidence, data, peer-reviewed papers, you know, science!
And you are correct here. But I am patient and willing to wait for those arguments which aren't fallacies with evidence that is actually evidence.
What I think is going on is that climate change happens on a longer time scale than human debate does. Advocates for global warming mitigation have exhausted their arguments, and pushed the boundaries of the viability of their data and predictions. Now we wait for sufficient confirming evidence to support their assertions.
Normally, that would be good enough, like for advocates of Drake's equation arguing about the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in space that might want to communicate with us. No matter how much we speculate on existence of extraterrestrial life, we won't understand it until we find it. So we wait and listen.
But certain parties want action now. And when you want action now, but won't have valid arguments to support that action for at least decades to come, that's when the fallacies appear. And I think it's exacerbated by a considerable industry which is currently spending a very large amount of public funding and which needs to justify that spending on an ongoing basis. Big Oil isn't the only part of the world with gobs of money. Nor does Big Oil fund most climate researchers.
My view is that anthropogenic global warming is likely on long enough time frames and large enough emissions of CO2 that we will have serious global warming and ocean acidification problems, and eventually will require some sort of mitigation and adaption strategies. But the problem is rather that climate change is far from our only problem and thus, its resolution is far from the only thing we need to do.
Advocates tend to ignore that current efforts to mitigate have been to a great extent, failures. They have failed both to directly reduce green house gases emissions and have failed in that they make worse problems worse, such as global poverty (which among other things is a considerable driver for both overpopulation and green house gases emissions).
They also ignore that costs are greatly overstated and often caused by other problems. For example, global warming could make species extinctions worse, but a world with adequate wild habitat (and channels between habitat to allow species migration, perhaps assisted by humanity too) and moderately uncontrolled global warming (what we appear to be heading for, let us note) would do better than a world without that habitat and no climate change.
Similarly, global warming could make current arable land less arable. But again, global warming plus a responsible agricultural and water use approach is going to do better than no global warming plus poor use and management of agricultural resources.
In the majority of cases where global warming is alleged to be a great danger to us, it is actually some other problem that is the real danger. Solving that other problem even in the presence of global warming is invariably better than solving global warming, but not addressing the greater problem.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Sunday November 13 2016, @02:26AM
Also, look at where it was published, a pay-to-publish journal that looks like it's trying to piggyback its name off Nature...
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday November 13 2016, @04:32AM
Don't shoot the messenger.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:25AM
Don't shoot the messenger.
Quite right. Shoot his publisher. Such a hive of scum and villainy!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @06:43AM
> Also, look at where it was published, a pay-to-publish journal that looks like it's trying to piggyback its name off Nature...
Its not just "piggybacking" it is a digital-only, open-access spin-off of Nature.
According to Wired, its top quality. [wired.co.uk] Third highest rated behind only Nature and Science. So, I'm not really seeing the problem.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday November 13 2016, @07:31AM
Ah, OK, so it's not one of Springer's shovelware publications. It's always a bit hard to tell what you're getting there...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @10:26AM
From one point of view, carbon trapped in plant material It is caught in sort of a juggling cycle: It eventually comes out of it.
However, from another point of view, juggling cycle is actually storing the number of juggled objects, while it lasts.
The trouble would arise if cycle dynamic changes because of some independent variable in it changes in such direction that cycle starts to shrink.
Of course I concur that biosphere is helping, but not nearly enough to keep status quo.
Perhaps more research is needed to understand is it only a latency, or an actual plateau of its absorbing capacity?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:24AM
this attempt to make is seem as if anthropogenic co2 isn't a problem is disheartening.
I think the real purpose of this study is to demonstrate how many stupid people on the internet don't read properly. After all, you clearly didn't even read the last line of the summary
Still, human emissions remain the dominant driver of CO2 levels, he says. "If we keep emitting as much as we are, and what we emit keeps going up, then it won't matter very much what the plants do."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @01:25PM
http://phys.org/news/2015-11-acidity-coral-reefs.html [phys.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 13 2016, @12:31AM
We already KNEW that plants absorb CO2. We can conclude that healthy plant life will absorb a lot of CO2, and unhealthy plant life will not. More, it's easy to conclude from already known and pretty obvious facts that REFORESTATION would go a long, long, LONG way toward wiping CO2 out of the atmosphere.
So - they've rediscovered something that is obvious, and they are using the obvious to explain why CO2 hasn't rised at predicted rates?
How about this: They don't know what's going on, and most of their predictions are just educated guesses. Everytime a guess proves to be inaccurate, they are left grasping at straws to explain WHY.
Let's plant trees, people. Let's plant grasses and bushes. Reforest the Sahara, and billions of plants will work round the clock to clean our air. All we need are a few nuke plants to generate electricity to purify seawater, then pump that seawater into the interior of the continent.
Of course, the next alarmist prediction would be the sinking of Africa, due to all the weight of the added vegetation . . .
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @01:03AM
ISTM that life is incredibly opportunistic and, if forests -could- grow in the "empty" places, that would already be happening.
If I was to hazard a guess, I'd say that the limiting factor in most places is availability of fresh water.
...and can the planting even keep up with the burning of rainforests in e.g. Indonesia and Brazil?
On a related note, I've wondered why planting (salt-tolerant) mangroves isn't pursued everywhere there is "bare" coast.
...and how badly that would screw up the -existing- ecosystem.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 13 2016, @01:29AM
Mangroves? i've read a number of articles over the years, bemoaning the disappearance of mangrove swamplands along the coasts. Seesm that the lack of mangroves has made the death tolls from tsunamis higher than they would have been in the past.
But, I think that man tends to cut down the mangroves, because they harbor "icky" things, like snakes, mosquitos, sharks, and much much more. Gotta cut down those trees, to make room for sparkling beaches and high rise condominiums.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @01:35AM
We already KNEW that plants absorb CO2. We can conclude that healthy plant life will absorb a lot of CO2, and unhealthy plant life will not. More, it's easy to conclude from already known and pretty obvious facts that REFORESTATION would go a long, long, LONG way toward wiping CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Two things, however, remain unknown. One, who is this "we" that Runaway keeps referring to? Two, how far is a long, LONG way and would it make even the slightest dent in the amount of CO2 that humans pump into the atmosphere? Since
How about this: I don't know what's going on, and most of my conclusions are just uneducated guesses. Everytime a guess proves to be inaccurate, I are left grasping at straws to explain WHY to all those people who no longer pay any attention to me.
That whole Nuke/desalination thing will just have to wait a bit longer. Perhaps you could plant a tree? Oh, but then there is this:
Let's plant people, trees!. Let's plant Clintons and Bushes, and reap the Trump!.
Sorry for the misquotes. I think it was an excess of Greenhouse Gases and the totally expected quality of the comment. But at least now you have some straw in the form of a nice strawman!
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Sunday November 13 2016, @04:59PM
Runaway1956> We already KNEW that plants absorb CO2.
Anonymous Coward> One, who is this "we" that Runaway keeps referring to?
In the Wichita Falls (Texas) Independent School District, the topic is taught to fifth-grade students.
http://www.wfisd.net/cms/lib/TX01000557/Centricity/Domain/2582/5_Sc_Unit09_L4_Carbon_Dioxide_Oxygen_Cycle.pdf [wfisd.net]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday November 13 2016, @03:04AM
Actually....
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth [nasa.gov]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday November 13 2016, @04:22AM
Or just wait. It only takes a few degrees increase in global temperature to do it naturally, it's happened many times in the past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Sahara
Anyway, yes, we know that plants absorb CO2 for a very long time, and we also know that many plants actually grow more quickly when exposed to more CO2. Knowing that these are facts is different from being able to properly quantify the effects and work out the math to the point where you can predict what's actually going to happen, though, so hopefully this research will produce some usable information.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Sunday November 13 2016, @08:53AM
Waiting is rather irresponsible when the Sahara is expanding, largely due to destructive agricultural practices. Starting on a plan of reforestation with both passive (air wells, gabions, wind abatement etc.) and active systems (desalination, importing organic material etc.) is the quickest, smartest, and best thing we could do. Other deserts are even easier because most of them aren't full of sand. The middle east could be the paradise it was a couple thousand years ago if there was a large concerted effort to restore and preserve the environment in the right balance.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday November 13 2016, @04:26AM
Wouldn't bamboo be best? Grows a lot faster and would replace a lot demand for trees.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @10:04AM
That would be nice for the short term... but have you ever planted bamboo in your garden... I guess not, else you would know that it would become an invasive species. Bamboo is hard to get rid of afterwards.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 13 2016, @07:19PM
Bamboo, hemp, uhhhh - what's that other plant they make paper from - dang it, there's a plantation not far from me, and I can't remember what the plant is. It's very much like bamboo.
Not papyrus, I believe that requires a very wet environment, but that would work if we pumped enough water into the desert. It's very much like bamboo.
Anything green growing on the Saharan desert would be good for the absorption of carbon. Anything at all, even lichens and mosses. The bigger and denser the better, so we would like trees, but even grasses are good. All they need is water, and some seed.
(just a note that bamboo is a grass, not sure that everyone here knows that)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @06:51AM
They don't know what's going on, and most of their predictions are just educated guesses. Everytime a guess proves to be inaccurate, they are left grasping at straws to explain WHY.
You must spend all your time on facebook because your analysis is totally on the level of facebook fake-news.
"They" have a pretty good idea of what's going on, predictions have been pretty accurate, probably too conservative. When new information is discovered that's used to refine their understanding because science. Just because their understanding is imperfect doesn't make it wrong. If it did then every single thing you have ever said would be wrong. Oh, wait...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 13 2016, @07:21PM
"predictions have been pretty accurate"
Oh, that's right - the hocky puck chart. Yeah, to bad that New York city is now under six feet of water. Lucky for the natives that their dwellings were built more than six feet high.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @10:09AM
Let's plant trees, people. Let's plant grasses and bushes. Reforest the Sahara, and billions of plants will work round the clock to clean our air. All we need are a few nuke plants to generate electricity to purify seawater, then pump that seawater into the interior of the continent.
As plant biologist, the best solution I have heard so far is digging trenches: https://justdiggit.org/ [justdiggit.org]
The solution is low cost, low maintenance, uses natural sources (sun and wind for energy and hooks into the earths water cycle) and nature can heal itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @04:50PM
All we need are a few nuke plants to generate electricity to purify seawater, then pump that seawater into the interior of the continent.
Are you 10? Do the damn calculation first before making shit up. Or just read up about Sahara. It's been doing nothing but expanding over the last 2000 years.
It would go a long way if Brazil wasn't about to make 2nd Sahara in South America through deforestation (yes, trees are what causes rain the the rain forest) but whatever.
Of course, the next alarmist prediction would be the sinking of Africa, due to all the weight of the added vegetation . . .
Oh, sorry, just an idiot. And I thought you were just immature.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 13 2016, @07:30PM
Apparently, you're not even ten years old. The Sahara is almost all man made. We did that. We cut the trees down, we used extremely poor farming practices, we over grazed the land with sheeps and goats. Man did all of that. Just as man has begun to destroy the desert in Arizona with crap farming practices. Arizona is a desert, but it is a very fertile land. Add a bit of water, and anything grows.
We saw how fertile the land was, and we couldn't wait to start cutting it open with plows. What moisture was trapped in the soil by the plant covering rapidly evaporated, and the soil pretty much died. A similar story happened in Washington and Oregon, but the farming practes were better, so the soil didn't die. (for those who don't know it, that area east of the mountains is indeed a desert)
Now - what's wrong with the nuclear plants? Build ten or twenty around the continent, all dedicated to extracting fresh water from seawater. Pump that water into the interior, where it is most needed. The Sahara won't disappear in ten or a hundred years, but we can most certainly stop it expanding.
What does ANY of that have to with your maturity level?