"So much for CO2 forest productivity boosting" Topic

Interesting, and scary, study in PNAS

link

Significance

Limited knowledge about the mechanistic drivers of forest growth and responses to environmental changes creates uncertainties about the future role of circumpolar boreal forests in the global carbon cycle. Here, we use newly acquired tree-ring data from Canada's National Forest Inventory to determine the growth response of the boreal forest to environmental changes. We find no consistent boreal-wide growth response over the past 60 y across Canada. However, some southwestern and southeastern forests experienced a growth enhancement, and some regions such as the northwestern and maritime areas experienced a growth depression. Growth–climate relationships bring evidence of an intensification of the impacts of hydroclimatic variability on growth late in the 20th century, in parallel with the rapid rise of summer temperature.

Abstract

Considerable evidence exists that current global temperatures are higher than at any time during the past millennium. However, the long-term impacts of rising temperatures and associated shifts in the hydrological cycle on the productivity of ecosystems remain poorly understood for mid to high northern latitudes. Here, we quantify species-specific spatiotemporal variability in terrestrial aboveground biomass stem growth across Canada's boreal forests from 1950 to the present. We use 873 newly developed tree-ring chronologies from Canada's National Forest Inventory, representing an unprecedented degree of sampling standardization for a large-scale dendrochronological study. We find significant regional- and species-related trends in growth, but the positive and negative trends compensate each other to yield no strong overall trend in forest growth when averaged across the Canadian boreal forest. The spatial patterns of growth trends identified in our analysis were to some extent coherent with trends estimated by remote sensing, but there are wide areas where remote-sensing information did not match the forest growth trends. Quantifications of tree growth variability as a function of climate factors and atmospheric CO2 concentration reveal strong negative temperature and positive moisture controls on spatial patterns of tree growth rates, emphasizing the ecological sensitivity to regime shifts in the hydrological cycle. An enhanced dependence of forest growth on soil moisture during the late-20th century coincides with a rapid rise in summer temperatures and occurs despite potential compensating effects from increased atmospheric CO2 concentration.

Not a good sign. The more research that comes out on the climatic impacts of warming, the more worried I get.

Don't worry, there is a blog showing that this is all nonsense on another thread. Whew!

Bowman, you are a master of the art of sarcasm. *thumbs up *

Bowman, thank you, I feel sooooo much better…

The universe is evidently arranged by Existence to promote life. Despite calamities of a global nature many times in the past, here the earth is and here we all are. Despite our high falutin' opinion of ourselves, there is no way that our influence on the planet's climate will do anything more than that: influence. Studies are always flawed. Nature is not. It simply is, and we have to accept what is. Our influence will have no lethal impact on life continuing on. If we weren't here, life would be different, that is all. To call ourselves evil or stupid for doing what we do best – manipulating our surroundings because we want/need to and can – is itself stupid.

If green energy is required to save us, then some people had better be about investing in its invention and development.

If it is already too late for that to matter, then something in Nature will preserve life here by taking us down to a safe notch. That will be unpleasant for a very little while. But following generations will have some very interesting legends to repeat about the time of the calamities. "Ragnarok" is my favorite paradigm, if we are going down that road. Everybody gets to start over and participate again………….

Why is that abstract scary, Martin? "We don't know" is what I get out of it.

I find it scary since it confirms the suspicion that Boreal forest aren't carbon constrained – in other words you'll need more N P and K to boost productivity… and Boreal soils are notoriously poor in N P and K.

(With apologies to Neil Peart)
You can belive that life has nothing left to chance with a host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance. You can choose a ready guide In some celestial voice. However, I will choose methodological materialism and Freewill.

Just look at the cosmos. If it wasn't "set up" to promote life, the aberration of gravity resulting in galaxies would be ours and virtually no other. Instead the most common celestial phenomenon is the formation of galaxies like our own. We see this mirrored everywhere on our own planet. And that is evidence enough to expect this countless times everywhere else. One species on one planet is not going to have the power to snuff out life.

The fact that we have developed, and continue to develop, "godlike" powers of creation and destruction, is evidence of something even more powerful by far than ourselves; or else we would not have ever come up with the rudiments of "godlike" powers of creation and destruction.

Our collective wisdom has increased over time. Otherwise, if you had delivered the savvy of Nukes to Genghis Khan, he'd have destroyed the world long ago.

Yet we have "Cold War Three", according to some pundits. And little to zero risk of any Nukes being used. We know what the outcome would be.

We are a relatively benign species compared to others (say ants, for instance). Our newly invented/discovered "godlike" powers of creation and destruction are in good hands. Probably this is intended. There is no evidence to refute this supposition.

Just as we are not going to Nuke ourselves, we are not going to destroy life on Earth through burning naturally made and found fossil fuels. Timing may be critical, but "a miss is as good as a mile" is all we need: new energy sources are coming, very soon, and they will be very, very cool. They will also be very capable of misuse. So our wisdom in this, our last hurrah of global violence over religious/ideological misdirection, will have to be eradicated through cooperation globally. Once we get that final lesson out of the way, we can move forward into a cleaner, safer world………….

And yet, look at a puddle of water. See how the water perfectly forms the contours of the puddle, as if the puddle was intelligently created for the water? And yet, we know that fluids will fill their volume and the fit argument begins to look quite silly.

Just look at the cosmos.

Yes, life is the exception, not the rule, and it's only found in a small zone at most 20km thick (and only Tardigrades will survive both extremes unaided) around a single planet among countless stars. We're a fluke, and that makes it all the more precious for the fleeting glimpse that we experience…

Just as we are not going to Nuke ourselves, we are not going to destroy life on Earth through burning naturally made and found fossil fuels.

Is this the "what, me worry?" theory of AGW? Yeah, right….

The universe is evidently arranged by Existence to promote life

Existence arranged the Universe? Does that even mean anything?

As to the Anthropic principle, I'll listen to Fraser Cain instead of GWA

youtu.be/a8dASH8Bg_M

GWA, I know you are severely allergic to following any link that clashes with your innate preconceptions. But I'd give this short (5:10 minute) video a watch.

99.999999999999999999999999999% of the universe would kill you in seconds. (Including large part of the earth)

So not very promoting of life.

I watch "your" videos, if they are not too long. Links, I mostly open and skim. Some have arrested my deeper reading skills.

Gun, a series of .9999999999999999s is not impressive when you add up dark matter and dark energy and realize that what we see, existing matter, is statistically "nonexistent".

But here we are, inarguably existing, inside our little bubble/envelope of friendly conditions. Promoting life.

Other "earths" are probably numbered in countless billions throughout the universe. That would make Promoting Life not a fluke…………….

Statistically nonexistent? I'm not sure what statistics you usually deal with but 5% is not "statistically nonexistent"

And it's besides the point 99.99999999999999% of the visible universe would kill you in seconds.

The visible matter of the universe is nowhere near 5% of the whole mass. I forget the video on YouTube, of the lecture by the physics expert (he's popular, but not quite in the same league as Richard Dawkins), who discussed the shape of the universe and its probable current size; and he made the clear point that visible matter is so small that it is "statistically nonexistent." Taken mathematically, "we don't exist". He was only proving the point of how small we are, considering that even the mass of known and extrapolated matter doesn't account for even a hundredth of a percent. I wish I could remember better. I believe the video was linked on this board, probably two, three years ago…………

And your point about how much of the universe is deadly is a non-point, or nonsense: simply because the proportion of "friendly space" is all that matters. It exists, we exist within it, and the universe appears to provide countless other places where similar "havens" for life exist……………….

The visible matter of the universe is nowhere near 5% of the whole mass.

"The standard model of cosmology indicates that the total mass–energy of the universe contains 4.9% ordinary matter, 26.8% dark matter and 68.3% dark energy. Thus, dark matter constitutes 84.5% of total mass, while dark energy plus dark matter constitute 95.1% of total mass–energy content."

Ade, P. A. R.; Aghanim, N.; Armitage-Caplan, C.; (Planck Collaboration); et al. (22 March 2013). "Planck 2013 results. I. Overview of products and scientific results – Table 9". Astronomy and Astrophysics. 1303: 5062. arXiv:1303.5062Freely accessible. Bibcode:2014A&A…571A…1P. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201321529.

Francis, Matthew (22 March 2013). "First Planck results: the Universe is still weird and interesting". Arstechnica.

"Planck captures portrait of the young Universe, revealing earliest light". University of Cambridge. 21 March 2013. Retrieved 21 March 2013.

Sean Carroll, Ph.D., Caltech, 2007, The Teaching Company, Dark Matter, Dark Energy: The Dark Side of the Universe, Guidebook Part 2 page 46, Accessed 7 October 2013, "…dark matter: An invisible, essentially collisionless component of matter that makes up about 25 percent of the energy density of the universe… it's a different kind of particle… something not yet observed in the laboratory…"

Ferris, Timothy. "Dark Matter". Retrieved 10 June 2015.

Jarosik, N.; et al. (2011). "Seven-Year Wilson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Sky Maps, Systematic Errors, and Basic Results". Astrophysical Journal Supplement. 192 (2): 14. arXiv:1001.4744Freely accessible. Bibcode:2011ApJS..192…14J. doi:10.1088/0067-0049/192/2/14.

From the Wiki entry on Dark Matter. I think you are having one of your "migrating frog" moments again.

And your point about how much of the universe is deadly is a non-point, or nonsense: simply because the proportion of "friendly space" is all that matters

Which is a far cry from

The universe is evidently arranged by Existence to promote life

Again, you are making a point excoriated by Douglas Adams and the parable of the puddle.

We have many parables. And many models. The one I am imperfectly remembering is by a Richard Dawkins fawning fan (as was Douglas Adams), from Cali iirc. at a symposium for atheists (specifically), and his model was proposed in the lecture, in order to enjoy making his point that "statistically, we don't exist." He grinned and repeated it a few times throughout. Like proposed quantum physics models, it is open to questioning and even ridicule. I have not heard/read of it since that video; which, as I say, I recall getting the link to from HERE. Possibly provided even by yourself.

Even Dawkins favors (or did back in c. 2006) a model with some permutation of the "multiverse", which takes a proposed, "discovered" future model of "Darwinism" on a cosmic (multiverse) scale in order to get away from reliance on "chance" or "dumb like" to explain how life gets started in the first place. His proposed estimation on how many planets like Earth there likely are in our universe is necessary in order to minimize the "dumb luck" factor of the anthropic principle (and thus dismiss any serious contemplation for "God").

So he, et al. physicists/philosophers are proponents for life being promoted by the universe/multiverse. In this area I seem to be in good company.

What was the point again, of pressing home how deadly everything is surrounding us?…………..

In any case, to propose such a model flies in the face of "c. 5%" so hugely that the two models of the universe cannot be reconciled. His math, your math, sort of thing. Arguing mathematical models with numbers that don't lie; but they do say what you make them say………….

Even Dawkins favors (or did back in c. 2006) a model with some permutation of the "multiverse", which takes a proposed, "discovered" future model of "Darwinism" on a cosmic (multiverse) scale in order to get away from reliance on "chance" or "dumb like" to explain how life gets started in the first place.

I'd like to discuss this with you, but I have no idea what you are talking about.

Evolution as a basis for explaining biodiversity of life on Earth has NOTHING to do with the evolution of the universe. We use the same colloquial term but they have no commonality beyond that. Dawkins is not an expert on cosmology.

Dawkins is not an expert on cosmology.

That's why it's interesting when he's co-listed/presenting with Lawrence Krauss ;-)

("Dumb luck", not "like", heh. How did that one get past my scrupulous self-editing?)

"Dawkins is not an expert on cosmology." LOL. Who is? They are all making up competing models to explain existence of the universe in the first place.

Richard Dawkins favors a granular model of cosmology, rather than focusing on this universe alone as some kind of freak accident/chance thing. A "Darwinist" approach via some kind of "megaverse/multiverse", is "hated by most physicists. I can't understand why. I think it is beautiful – perhaps because my consciousness has been raised by Darwin." That way, our universe, which promotes life ("We live not only on a friendly planet, but also in a friendly Universe."), is the result of countless failures on the cosmic stage to produce "friendly universes". Ours just happens to be one that is friendly, or else we would not be here to talk about it. Etc…………

Dawkins, "If the odds of life originating spontaneously on a planet were a billion to one against, nevertheless that stupefyingly improbable event would still happen on a billion planets" (in our universe).

On a cosmic scale, universes are hypothetically arrived at the same way. A sort of "Goldilocks zone" on the cosmic scale first, where one in a billion universes wind up with the "right stuff", and produce one in a billion planets where life starts.

"I think it is definitely worth spending money on trying to duplicate [the origin of life] in the lab and – by the same token, on SETI, because I think it is likely that there is intelligent life elsewhere."

"Dawkins is not an expert on cosmology." LOL. Who is?

Seriously? Astronomers and Astro-physicists. Happy to help.

They are all making up ……..

A good place to stop reading right there. I just know unsubstantiated nonsense like "migrating frogs" will follow.

I could be replying to this thread, but I think Bowman would rather I work on painting more Korean peasants

How do they feel about it? You in North or South K?