Rising CO2 Promoting Desert 'Greening'

[WestStar]

July 08, 2013; 2:11 PM
Increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) over the past 30 years have caused an 11 percent increase in foliage over arid regions of North America, Australia, Africa and the Middle East, according to researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) from Australia.
The image below is satellite data that shows the percent amount that foliage cover has changed around the world from 1982 to 2010. Note the biggest increases are in the arid regions of western North America, Africa and western Australia. Image courtesy of CSIRO.

This process, also known as CO2 fertilization, occurs where elevated CO2 enables a leaf during photosynthesis, the process by which green plants convert sunlight into sugar, to extract more carbon from the air or lose less water to the air, or both, according to the CSIRO press release.
The elevated CO2 causes individual leaves of a plant to use less water, thus plants in arid regions will respond by increasing their total number of leaves, according to the report.
Scientists have long known the effects of CO2 on foliage, but until now it has been difficult to demonstrate, according to CSIRO research scientist Dr. Randall Donohue.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/rising-co2-promoting-desert-gr/15046688

In findings based on satellite observations, CSIRO, in collaboration with the Australian National University (ANU), found that this CO2 fertilisation correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa, according to CSIRO research scientist, Dr Randall Donohue.


It appears to me that an increase in CO2 triggers an increase in vegetation, or a decrease in desertfication, leading to a greater sequestration of carbon dioxide.

Or in other words the earth's natural systems will balance themselves out over time.

[OKIsItJustMe]

1. For more information, see…

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112745885

[Duer 157099]

2. Heh, the plants will win in the end

Good for them!

Finally, a bright side to global warming.

It's all a scheme by the plants, I knew it!

[Salviati]

3. I don't know if it will entirely balance out...

...but it is good to find out about some negative feedback mechanisms to go along with all of the positive feedback ones we hear about all the time.

[kestrel91316]

4. Isn't Accuweather a RW corporation that engages in GW denial?

Desertification is ongoing. All the fires in the SW US of late have caused scientists to become concerned that the forests of the SW will never return (presumably replaced by scrub and desert).

Too much CO2 is a bad thing for plants AND virtually all ecosystems.

[NickB79]

5. "Balance themselves out over time"

Of course they'll balance themselves out over time.

Too bad Mother Nature works with geologic timescales, while human timescales are a blink of an eye in comparison.

A million years from now, everything will have balanced itself out again. Carbon will have been re-sequestered, the global temperatures will be falling again, polar ice sheets will be reforming, and the species that survive through the current mass extinction event will be re-speciating out to fill the empty niches. However, that means jack shit for those of us looking at the next few hundred years of climate upheaval and wondering how the hell civilization is going to survive.

After all, the planet balanced itself out after an asteroid impact and ensuing catastrophic climate change swings 65 million years ago. That didn't mean much to the dinosaurs, now did it?

[bemildred]

6. Yes, Gaia will respond, the problem is that we may not like the new balance point. nt