From a press release of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Key new ingredient in climate model refines global predictions
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 9, 2009 — For the first time, climate scientists from across the country have successfully incorporated the nitrogen cycle into global simulations for climate change, questioning previous assumptions regarding carbon feedback and potentially helping to refine model forecasts about global warming.
The results of the experiment at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and at the National Center for Atmospheric Research are published in the current issue of Biogeosciences. They illustrate the complexity of climate modeling by demonstrating how natural processes still have a strong effect on the carbon cycle and climate simulations. In this case, scientists found that the rate of climate change over the next century could be higher than previously anticipated when the requirement of plant nutrients are included in the climate model.
ORNL’s Peter Thornton, lead author of the paper, describes the inclusion of these processes as a necessary step to improve the accuracy of climate change assessments.
“We’ve shown that if all of the global modeling groups were to include some kind of nutrient dynamics, the range of model predictions would shrink because of the constraining effects of the carbon nutrient limitations, even though it’s a more complex model.”
To date, climate models ignored the nutrient requirements for new vegetation growth, assuming that all plants on earth had access to as much “plant food” as they needed. But by taking the natural demand for nutrients into account, the authors have shown that the stimulation of plant growth over the coming century may be two to three times smaller than previously predicted. Since less growth implies less CO2 absorbed by vegetation, the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are expected to increase.
However, this reduction in growth is partially offset by another effect on the nitrogen cycle: an increase in the availability of nutrients resulting from an accelerated rate of decomposition – the rotting of dead plants and other organic matter – that occurs with a rise in temperature.
Combining these two effects, the authors discovered that the increased availability of nutrients from more rapid decomposition did not counterbalance the reduced level of plant growth calculated by natural nutrient limitations; therefore less new growth and higher atmospheric CO¬2 concentrations are expected.
The study’s author list, which consists of scientists from eight different institutions around the U.S. including ORNL, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory, and several research universities, exemplifies the broad expertise required to engage in the multidisciplinary field that is global climate modeling.
“In order to do these experiments in the climate system model, expertise is needed in the nitrogen cycle, but there is also a need for climate modeling expertise, the ocean has to be involved properly, the atmospheric chemistry . . . and then there are a lot of observations that have been used to parameterize the model,” said Thornton, who works in ORNL’s Environmental Sciences Division.
 |
|
|
ORNL’s Peter Thornton is helping climate scientists incorporate the nitrogen cycle into global simulations for climate change.
|
|
“The biggest challenge has been bridging this multidisciplinary gap and demonstrating to the very broad range of climate scientists who range everywhere from cloud dynamicists to deep ocean circulation specialists that [incorporating the nitrogen cycle] is a worthwhile and useful approach.”
The ability to handle the increase in complexities of these models was facilitated by the capabilities of ORNL’s Leadership Computing Facility, which currently houses the world’s fastest supercomputer for civilian research. Jim Hack, director of the National Center for Computational Sciences, emphasizes that Thornton and his team were not limited by computational resources in the construction of his model. “It’s one of the laboratory competencies, so we want to make sure we enable leadership science,” he said.
This breakthrough is one more step toward a more realistic prediction for the future of the earth’s climate. Nevertheless, potentially significant processes and dynamics are still missing from the simulations. Thornton also stresses the importance of long-term observation so scientists can better understand and model these processes.
A 15-year study of the role nitrogen plays in plant nutrition at Harvard Forest was an important observational source used to test their mathematical representation of the nitrogen cycle–a long experiment by any standards, but still an experiment that, according to Thornton, could improve the accuracy of the simulation if conducted even longer.
Other shortcomings of climate simulations include the disregard of changing vegetation patterns due to human land use and potential shifts in types of vegetation that might occur under a changing climate, although both topics are the focus of ongoing studies.
The research was funded by the DOE Office of Science. Additional resources were contributed by NASA Earth Science Enterprise, Terrestrial Ecology Program; National Center for Atmospheric Research through the NCAR Community Climate System Modeling program and the NCAR Biogeosciences program.
UT-Battelle manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the Department of Energy.
###
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Pamela Gray (18:33:24) :
September on the West coast from Mexico border to Canadian border during El Nino years: Drink up. The wine is in the caskets and everybody can get drunk on a dime. Bit o’ advice: Men should drink only white wine, women should drink the darkest red wine they can find. With chocolate.
Lush or what?
Pamela Gray (20:38:29) :
Having been raised on a farm and ranch in NE Oregon, when I moved to Albany, Oregon, I promptly added 5 chickens to my in- town house. Within days. No slugs. No sow bugs. No ear wigs. No flowers either but the chickens were lots of fun and my lawn was crayon green in color.
My G-ma came to visit one summer, admired my chicken-fenced garden, and chastised me, as in nearly put me in the corner like she used to, for trying to kill blackberry vines. You can take the girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl.
http://www.maryjanesfarm.org/
Organic farm
Pamela Gray (20:10:05) :
Slugs! Love slugs! Have you read the children’s book about slugs? Funny book! Something about the revenge of the slugs. Hilarious!
Ah, But have you ever seen the movie “Slugs!”. The tag line was:
They Oooze!
They Slime!
They Kill!!!!
Of course, the death scenes took a VERY long time to film….
George E. Smith (08:00:29) : They won´t, that substance is too strange, it is not found in computers.
rbateman (23:40:03) :
I am not sure about ANYTHING when it comes to weather. The linked picture was simply the NOAA forecast precipitation amounts over the next 5 days. As we are currently in the storm as I type this and as I expect that those 5 days will include the period where the storm has left the coast and gone inland, and not seeing much rain forecast East of Lake Tahoe over the next 5 days.
Paul Vaughan (23:20:29)
I have a problem with the “shell game” wording that they use.
Ok, so imagine that you have a warmer climate. You will generally also have more rain and probably more thunderstorms. This will provide more nitrogen to the soil through rain from the air so it speeds up the nitrogen cycle.
Also there is the whole “could” problem. They never assign a probability to their “could” statements. You COULD get hit by a meteorite as you walk out your front door today. In fact, one large enough to go completely through the building you are in COULD bonk you right on the head where you are sitting in your chair right now.
Now why would this acceleration happen only at some vague fugure time? Why haven’t we already seen it? If enhanced CO2 would cause things in the ecosystem to happen that would accelerate warming, why haven’t we already seen it? Why do we currently have flat to cooling temperatures over the past decade in the face of rising CO2?
Is there some magic threshold that must be reached for their scenario to “kick in”? It is another claim of something that “could” happen in the future but has not been observed to happen so far.
And how many iterations of their model did they produce before they got this result? And why is this result more valid than any of the earlier iterations that might have shown no warming?
I can produce a computer run that shows just about anything.
“Someone should introduce them to the plants that thrived before there was a topsoil layer, etc. Like the Sequoia Giganteum, which gorges itself on totally sterile mineral soil, sunlight, water and C02.”
I have a better idea. How about introducing them to the giant carnivorous trap plants of Borneo, that gorges itself on hysterical warmists?
“”” Adolfo Giurfa (08:08:20) :
George E. Smith (08:00:29) : They won´t, that substance is too strange, it is not found in computers. “””
Adolfo; I could recommend some good textbooks on Optics they could also study so they could investigate and model the optical effects of H2O in all three of its phases, on electromagnetic radiation from about 0.1 to 100 microns wavelength; or about 12meV to 12eV photon energy
Combining these two effects, the authors discovered that the increased availability of nutrients from more rapid decomposition did not counterbalance the reduced level of plant growth calculated by natural nutrient limitations; therefore less new growth and higher atmospheric CO¬2 concentrations are expected.
OMH, we give these people computers and we expect them to know how to use them…
So despite an observed world wide acceleration in plant growth of about 15% from increased CO2, they are going with the model that predicts less plant growth and more CO2 build up? So backassward it makes my bottom hurt thinking about it.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/of-trees-volcanos-and-pond-scum/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/the-trouble-with-c12-c13-ratios/
Oh, and I don’t suppose the incorporated the fact that the more storms they are predicting will result in more nitrogen in the soil from lightning; or that legumes are nitrogen fixers and more CO2 means more legume growth too, that means more nitrogen fixation… Or that more plants means more animals and bugs eating them that puts more nitrogen back into the soils…
And given that “excess nitrogen runoff” is considered one of the horror of horrors of human pollution, I don’t suppose they thought that soaking up that excess nitrogen might be a benefit.
I need to stop thinking about how many ways they have this broken or I’m going to bust a gusset…
This breakthrough is one more step toward a more realistic prediction for the future of the earth’s climate. Nevertheless, potentially significant processes and dynamics are still missing from the simulations. Thornton also stresses the importance of long-term observation so scientists can better understand and model these processes.
Bottom line is that they are very far from understanding the factors that are necessary to make good predictions. But, as usual, the announcement is trumped by other factors that show just how little these guys understand the issues. For example, I doubt that these individuals even thought about such things as how the increased acidity is delivering bioavailable iron to the oceans and increases ocean productivity. (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/05/man-made-air-pollution-helps-iron-deficient-ocean/) They also seem to have missed the various real world studies that show that biomass in forests has increased substantially.
Baker, T.R., Phillips, O.L., Malhi, Y., Almeida, S., Arroyo, L., Di Fiore, A., Erwin, T., Higuchi, N., Killeen, T.J., Laurance, S.G., Laurance, W.F., Lewis, S.L., Monteagudo, A., Neill, D.A., Núñez Vargas, P., Pitman, N.C.A., Silva, J.N.M. and Vásquez Martínez, R. 2004. Increasing biomass in Amazonian forest plots. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B – Biological Sciences 359: 353-365.
Hietz, P., Wanek, W. and Dunisch, O. 2005. Long-term trends in cellulose δ13C and water-use efficiency of tropical Cedrela and Swietenia from Brazil. Tree Physiology 25: 745-752.
Lewis, S.L., Phillips, O.L., Baker, T.R., Lloyd, J., Malhi, Y., Almeida, S., Higuchi, N., Laurance, W.F., Neill, D.A., Silva, J.N.M., Terborgh, J., Lezama, A.T., Vásquez Martinez, R., Brown, S., Chave, J., Kuebler, C., Núñez Vargas, P. and Vinceti, B. 2004. Concerted changes in tropical forest structure and dynamics: evidence from 50 South American long-term plots. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B – Biological Sciences 359: 421-436.
Lin, G., Marino, B.D.V., Wei, Y., Adams, J., Tubiello, F. and Berry, J.A. 1998. An experimental and modeling study of responses in ecosystems carbon exchanges to increasing CO2 concentrations using a tropical rainforest mesocosm. Australian Journal of Plant Physiology 25: 547-556.
Nemani, R.R., Keeling, C.D., Hashimoto, H., Jolly, W.M., Piper, S.C., Tucker, C.J., Myneni, R.B. and Running. S.W. 2003. Climate-driven increases in global terrestrial net primary production from 1982 to 1999. Science 300: 1560-1563.
Phillips, O.L., Aragao, L.E.O.C., Lewis, S.L., Fisher, J.B., Lloyd, J., Lopez-Gonzalez, G., Malhi, Y., Monteagudo, A., Peacock, J., Quesada, C.A., van der Heijden G., Almeida, S., Amaral, I., Arroyo, L., Aymard, G., Baker, T.R., Banki, O., Blanc, L., Bonal, D., Brando, P., Chave, J., de Oliveira, A.C.A., Cardozo, N.D., Czimczik, C.I., Feldpausch, T.R., Freitas, M.A., Gloor, E., Higuchi, N., Jimenez, E., Lloyd, G., Meir, P., Mendoza, C., Morel, A., Neill, D.A., Nepstad, D., Patino, S., Penuela, M.C., Prieto, A., Ramirez, F., Schwarz, M., Silva, J., Silveira, M., Thomas, A.S., ter Steege, H., Stropp, J., Vasquez, R., Zelazowski, P., Davila, E.A., Andelman, S., Andrade, A., Chao, K.-J., Erwin, T., Di Fiore, A., Honorio C., E., Keeling, H., Killeen, T.J., Laurance, W.F., Cruz, A.P., Pitman, N.C.A., Vargas, P.N., Ramirez-Angulo, H., Rudas, A., Salamao, R., Silva, N., Terborgh, J. and Torres-Lezama, A. 2009. Drought sensitivity of the Amazon rainforest. Science 323: 1344-1347.
So will we now have cap and trade on Nitrogen? These guys are grasping at straws to shore up their predictions of disasters to come. The sad thing is that the MSM loves this kind of story.
Well they just got themselves a whole load of cushy funding! Nice to see climate models incorporating some of the many bits they are missing, if they keep this up by 2200 they will have the whole cycle covered, then we might get some reliable forecasts for 2090!
crosspatch (08:57:37) :
After crossing leaving the West Coast, crossing the desert, it will reform on the East flank of the Rockies, draw in cold air out of Canada and mix with Gulf Stream moisture, then proceed to blast everything in it’s re-invigorated path. That’s what usually happens far as I know. Maybe Anthony, who is a real meteorologist can tell us why it would or wouldn’t.
Did they bother to determine whether the models, after being adjusted to account for the two aspects of the nitrogen cycle, still reproduced past and present climates with reasonable accuracy? Or did they just see what the effect would be on the predicted future temperatures?
If they did evaluate the adjusted models against past and present climate, did they have to change any unknown parameters to keep the fit?
Kim Dollinson and Crosspatch.
In the icreased CO2 experiment with corn and soybean I noticed that CO2 and O3 were referred to as pollutants. NOT GOOD. I was impressed with the additional production and I couldn’t find if additional N was used to achieve the outcome or is the added CO2 negating the need forN? As an old corn farmer reduction in use of artificial N would be a financial godsend.
While you are critical of your scientists we in Australia have the CSIRO who depend on Realclimate.org and Manns hockey stick to tell us we are in drought. AND it will get much worse AND they need more money to perfect CO2 sequestration from our power stations. Seems these guys are singing from the same sheet.
Lawrie, I’m not sure, but I read a different paper when they were a year, or so, into the study, and I don’t believe they changed anything but CO2, and O3.
In fact, thinking back on it, I’m sure they didn’t.
Henry said “Lush or what”.
Actually, delightfully so. At 53, I can use all the red wine and chocolate I can get my hands on. It’s a biblical thing. A glass of wine per day (I wish) will keep you healthier and settle what ails you, so said Paul to Timothy. Word to the wise, don’t take estrogen supplements along side wine and chocolate. There is something to be said for too much of a good thing.
On the nitrogen fixing plants, I prefer plain old green beans, but clover or peas work as well. My G-ma planted pole beans around corn hills (in which she also buried a medium sized white fish). Given the gardening success of that woman, she would come back to haunt me if I said to do otherwise. She also advised using chicken poop, but SPARINGLY. You can burn an entire garden if not used judiciously.
More drivel from supposed scientists who should know better.
Bacteria are the biggest life-form on earth by mass and a fair proportion of them have the happy knack of being able to fix nitrogen. More plant life means more bacteria to feed on their dead remains, so the soil balance is maintained and the plants continue to flourish.
Isn’t nature marvelous…