Warmist, document thief, and water expert Peter Gleick must be terribly conflicted by this news from USDA.
Trees Using Water More Efficiently as Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Rises
DURHAM, NH, July 10, 2013 – A study by scientists with the U.S. Forest Service, Harvard University and partners suggests that trees are responding to higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by becoming more efficient at using water.
The study, “Increase in forest water-use efficiency as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rise,” was published on-line today in the journal Nature. Dave Hollinger, a plant physiologist with the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Research Station, is a co-author with lead author Trevor Keenan of Harvard University and colleagues from The Ohio State University, Indiana University, and the Institute of Meteorology and Climate in Germany. The article is available at: http://www.nature.com/nature
“Working with others, the Forest Service is developing knowledge that is essential to maintaining healthy, sustainable forests in a changing climate,” said Michael T. Rains, Director of the Northern Research Station. “We are striving to be at the forefront of delivering sound climate science to the public.”
Terrestrial plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, a process that is accompanied by the loss of water vapor from leaves. The ratio of water loss to carbon gain, or water-use efficiency, is a key characteristic of ecosystem function that is central to the global cycles of water, energy and carbon.
Scientists analyzed direct, long-term measurements of whole-ecosystem carbon and water exchange and found a substantial increase in water-use efficiency in temperate and boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere over the past two decades.
“Our analysis suggests that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide is having a direct and unexpectedly strong influence on ecosystem processes and biosphere-atmosphere interactions in temperate and boreal forests,” Hollinger said.
How efficient trees are in using water has implications for ecosystem function, services and feedbacks to the climate system. These include enhanced timber yields and improved water availability, which could partially offset the effects of future droughts. However, reduced evapotranspiration, or the combination of evaporation and plant transpiration from the land to the atmosphere, resulting from higher water-use efficiency could lead to higher air temperatures, decreased humidity, and decreased recycling of continental precipitation. This could cause increased continental freshwater runoff, along with drought in parts of the world that rely on water transpired in other regions.
Scientists analyzed data from seven sites in the Midwest and Northeastern United States that are part of the AmeriFlux network including the Forest Service’s Bartlett Experimental Forest in New Hampshire and the Howland Cooperating Experimental Forest in Maine and expanded the analysis to 14 additional forested sites in temperate and boreal regions. . Flux towers at these sites measure fluctuations in carbon dioxide uptake and water loss. The Northern Research Station operates flux towers at five experimental forests; in addition to the Bartlett and Howland Forests this work is continuing at the Silas Little Experimental Forest in New Jersey, the Marcell Experimental Forest in Grand Rapids, Minn., and the Baltimore Long-term Ecological Research Site.
The mission of the U.S. Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The agency has either a direct or indirect role in stewardship of about 80 percent of our nation’s forests; 850 million acres including 100 million acres of urban forests where most Americans live. The mission of the Forest Service’s Northern Research Station is to improve people’s lives and help sustain the natural resources in the Northeast and Midwest through leading-edge science and effective information delivery.
The newest green scare now is a change of evaporation patterns because plants are more efficiently using water because they are not as much CO2 starved as before. The first such blurb was in the german media today, predicting more heat because of less clouds due to a lack of evaporation over forests.
Bah, who wants plants to utilize scarce resources more efficiently? All forward thinking people should realize that the U.N. has already found the solution to world hunger and should set an example by transitioning to a diet of bugs.
/sarc. I think.
“How efficient trees are in using water has implications for ecosystem function, services and feedbacks to the climate system. These include enhanced timber yields and improved water availability, which could partially offset the effects of future droughts. However, reduced evapotranspiration, or the combination of evaporation and plant transpiration from the land to the atmosphere, resulting from higher water-use efficiency could lead to higher air temperatures, decreased humidity, and decreased recycling of continental precipitation. This could cause increased continental freshwater runoff, along with drought in parts of the world that rely on water transpired in other regions.”
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The spin is making me dizzy…
You should continue playing this because so few people
are familiar with this concept. Who says “CO2 is the elixir of life?”
At least a few of our tax dollars seem to be well spent. It looks like the AmeriFlux network can be placed in the same category as the Argo system as both seem capable of supporting real scientific research. Of course this is unless/until they start ‘adjusting’ the data to support the latest climate ‘junk science’.
DesertYote says there will be less water into the atmos…I think not.
Only a small amount of water is saved. But the CO2 effect on growth is
large. Thus more water, overall.
With a simple pair of unproved “could”s, they throw a negative into a paper that should have been all positive. But without those, they probably would not have gotten the paper published.
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Thank Gaea that Al Gore and the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming are fighting the menace of… trees prospering with more CO2! The horror….
More efficient use of water means more growth in water limited areas which means more fuel during dry periods which means more deadly uncontrollable wildfires which makes nightly news which funds AGW research … positive feedback at work …
*sigh*
That only shows increasingly more severe Dihydrogen Monoxide pollution of previously pristine arid & semi-arid areas is also anthropogenic. Unhealthy proliferation of plant material only adds to combustibles over land, the primary cause of inordinate fire hazard and black carbon emissions. Clearly, it is people who should be turned green, not vegetation.
Berényi Péter says:
“Clearly, it is people who should be turned green, not vegetation.”
A case for a GM solution to world hunger?
I’m shocked…LOL
More and more studies telling us CO2 was in such short supply…it was limiting
Of course the “weather” is going to become more stable…..all that loading and unloading (flux) just to survive when something is limiting
Schmitt and Happer vindicated and rather quickly at that. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323528404578452483656067190.html
Obama’s attack on CO2 as “pollutant” reveals him as a politically driven prat.
Looks like a confirmation of this to me: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/08/deserts-greening-from-rising-co2/
Looks to me like the trees are going to sprout more leaves until they hit the water limit (if we restrict ourselves to just water and CO2 availability in this case), hence their statement
“However, reduced evapotranspiration, or the combination of evaporation and plant transpiration from the land to the atmosphere, resulting from higher water-use efficiency could lead to higher air temperatures, decreased humidity, and decreased recycling of continental precipitation. ” probably is not true.
Good news.
The key to CAGW is the water-vapor feedback. Without that the alarmists are dead in the water. Now they are telling us that the humidity is going to go down? How again do we get runaway global warming with reduced humidity?
Evapotranspiration is a mechanism used by plants to cool themselve down–CO2 has a minimal impact in that regard.
Increase the vegetation world-wide as trees and other plants expand into moisture-marginal areas, and there will be more water vapor in the atmosphere, and cooler ground temperatures overall.
It’s a win-win situation unless you’re a Warmista, then it’s a lose-lose. And that’s a third win.
Love the USDA conclusion and speculation.
“These include enhanced timber yields and improved water availability, which could partially offset the effects of future droughts. However, reduced evapotranspiration, or the combination of evaporation and plant transpiration from the land to the atmosphere, resulting from higher water-use efficiency could lead to higher air temperatures, decreased humidity, and decreased recycling of continental precipitation. This could cause increased continental freshwater runoff, along with drought in parts of the world that rely on water transpired in other regions.”
So 1+1+1=6? This speculative assumes that the water now available due more efficient water usage by plants will not go to new plants that could not be supported under lower carbon dioxide conditions. Exactly backward to numerous discussions, including satellite photos, that have taken place here on WUWT. These new findings help explain why, even with status quo rainfall, that we are seeing deserts getting greener. The reality of the biosphere is opposite to this alarmist speculative conclusion to otherwise good science. More plants, transpiring more efficiently, will put the same amount of water back into the atmosphere. It’s good news…but we have to put an evil spin on it.
Even Homer Simpson could probably do the math on this one. Du-oh!!!
pbh
There was a story locally on New Mexico TV recently about the Los Alamos National Labs “Tree Death” experiment where they’re cooking (modifying surroundings to induce elevated temps) and starving trees of water. Then going on to claim that the US SW could be void of conifers in 40 years due to Climate Change.
From the story:
“Inside the plexiglass, the temperature is about 10 degrees hotter than outside. Also, McDowell is using plexiglass troughs to funnel away about half the water the trees naturally get from rain and snow.”
“We’re not trying to save them,” McDowell said. “We’re just going to monitor them as they die.”
Link to the story: http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/on_assignment/scientist-higher-temps-killing-forests
“…enhanced timber yields …”
What would the Forest Service know about timber yields? This implies that the timber is actually harvested.
Reblogged this on Daily Plunge and commented:
Articles like this reinforce my opinion of the hubris of mankind. There’s really so little that mankind actually knows. Of course our knowledge is increasing, but we should have a great deal of respect for what we still don’t understand. The oddest part of the entire climate change debate is that idea that that we can predict the future climate when we can’t even predict the weather next week.
Lets see if I understand this properly.
Increased CO2 leads to increased temperature which leads to increased water evaporation which leads to increased temperature – A positive feedback.
Increased CO2 leads to more efficient use of water leads to less evapotranspiration leads to increased temperature.
So in the first case we have increased water vapour leading to increased temps and in the second case we have decreased water vapour leading to increased temps.
We are doomed.
“..mission of the Forest Service’s Northern Research Station is to improve’s lives and help sustain the natural resources in the Northeast and Midwest through leading-edge science and effective information delivery.”
Heck, CO2 is doing this better than the Research Station. Except , of course, it does it quietly with no “information delivery”. Couldn’t they have left well enough alone with better water effficiency and greater timber resources and left out Nature’s obligatory, yeah but..
“It’s worse than we thought”
I focus in on the word “unexpected”. It is an indication of the disdain “ivory tower” scientists have for applied science and as a consequence how numb they really are. Ask any one who is adding CO 2 to green houses if this result is unexpect Maybe a PHD THESIS?