From a Georgia Tech Press Release:
Reducing Greenhouse Gases May Not Be Enough to Slow Climate Change
Georgia Tech City and Regional Planning Professor Brian Stone publishes a paper in the December edition of Environmental Science and Technology that suggests policymakers need to address the influence of global deforestation and urbanization on climate change, in addition to greenhouse gas emissions.
According to Stone’s paper, as the international community meets in Copenhagen in December to develop a new framework for responding to climate change, policymakers need to give serious consideration to broadening the range of management strategies beyond greenhouse gas reductions alone.
“Across the U.S. as a whole, approximately 50 percent of the warming that has occurred since 1950 is due to land use changes (usually in the form of clearing forest for crops or cities) rather than to the emission of greenhouse gases,” said Stone. “Most large U.S. cities, including Atlanta, are warming at more than twice the rate of the planet as a whole – a rate that is mostly attributable to land use change. As a result, emissions reduction programs – like the cap and trade program under consideration by the U.S. Congress – may not sufficiently slow climate change in large cities where most people live and where land use change is the dominant driver of warming.”
According to Stone’s research, slowing the rate of forest loss around the world, and regenerating forests where lost, could significantly slow the pace of global warming.
“Treaty negotiators should formally recognize land use change as a key driver of warming,” said Stone. “The role of land use in global warming is the most important climate-related story that has not been widely covered in the media.”
Stone recommends slowing what he terms the “green loss effect” through the planting of millions of trees in urbanized areas and through the protection and regeneration of global forests outside of urbanized regions. Forested areas provide the combined benefits of directly cooling the atmosphere and of absorbing greenhouse gases, leading to additional cooling. Green architecture in cities, including green roofs and more highly reflective construction materials, would further contribute to a slowing of warming rates. Stone envisions local and state governments taking the lead in addressing the land use drivers of climate change, while the federal government takes the lead in implementing carbon reduction initiatives, like cap and trade programs.
“As we look to address the climate change issue from a land use perspective, there is a huge opportunity for local and state governments,” said Stone. “Presently, local government capacity is largely unharnessed in climate management structures under consideration by the U.S. Congress. Yet local governments possess extensive powers to manage the land use activities in both the urban and rural areas.”
The Environmental Science and Technology article is available at http://pubs.acs.org/journal/esthag.
For more on land use change in the USA, see this NASA resource
And the other 50 percent because of “bad” weather stations. ☺ ☺
And another 50% from the ocean…
And another 50% from volcano’s
And another 50% from the sun
Umm..that is 200% so far…
and 50% from solar/cloud cover changes
“… the cap and trade program under consideration by the U.S. Congress – may not sufficiently slow climate change in large cities where most people live and where land use change is the dominant driver of warming.”
If the warming is localized, then it’s not “climate” in the sense that it needs to be regulated by international treaty. Plant more trees? There are more trees in New England now than there were in 1776. We’ve managed to pack in more people and cover a lot of space in concrete – and we do lots less farming. The Land Use has changed… but I don’t think directives from Copenhagen or Washington are the way to go.
And another 50% from the reduction in anthropogenic aerosols due to the Clean Air Act.
Gee, and I always thought that asphalt had the same transpiration as trees. The latent heat of evaporation should have kept the temperature constant. The CO2 moonbats remind me of the folks who are screaming about water when all the new homes in Reno have swimming pools and lawns.
And another 50% from trees in Yamal…
Here we go again; more make work for otherwise unemployed “scientists”.
So who is it that has arrived at the age of reading, and hasn’t learned that cutting down forests and concreting over meadows will change the environment. Well if you stay inside your cave, you will never notice the changes in the environment; so don’t worry about it.
So how many trees does Professor Stone plan on planting in the spot where his house used to stand; or hasn’t he got around to knocking it down yet?
Another 50% from the solar cycle…
“Half silk, half cotton, half linen. How can you go wrong?” -Jerry
I notice a new, at least to me, phrase in the next-to-last paragraph.
“Climate Management.”
And another 0.4 deg C is NOAA adjustment ☺ ☺ ☺
Interestingly (or rather, expectedly), as the climate has warmed in these urbanizing areas (far in excess of that produced by increasing CO2 concentrations), the heat-related mortality has declined there (see Figure 2 of this post for example).
-Chip Knappenberger
“Stone envisions local and state governments taking the lead in addressing the land use drivers of climate change, while the federal government takes the lead in implementing carbon reduction initiatives, like cap and trade programs.”
There ya go: ‘land use’ regulation, and cap and trade.
Central Planning uber alles.
How predictable.
“Reducing Greenhouse Gases May Not Be Enough to Slow Climate Change”
GAG.
Clive (07:59:42) :
Ed (08:02:08) :
Frank (08:43:03) :
Sounds like you guys have got a little more warming than you need. There is two hundred percent between you! (since you all count the 50% landuse)
50% from land use.
50% from location error
50% from aerosol cleanup
50% from CO2
50% from Solar cycles
50% from cosmic ray changes
50% from orbital changes
50% from planet attitude (tilt)
50% from ozone
50% from water vapor
50% from Al Gore
Is it any wonder people are tired of climate mathematics? GK
I have not and do not expect to read the underlying paper but doesn’t this press release prompt the question as to the existence of global climate change?
Remember, the warmists asserted that the planet was at risk because the symptoms suggested that the planet was warming.
But if that trend was an artifact of the combination and averaging of what can now be seen, to a large extent, as the result of land use changes then, perhaps, “global warming” is not an appropriate description of what has happened.
In other words, does a reduction in agricultural activity in Cobb County Georgia and the resulting warmer weather around Atlanta threaten Arctic ice?
So, rather than concluding the reduced emissions will not be enough to reverse the climate change, we get to ask on what basis is a warmer Cobb County seen to be a problem?
…and 0.0001% from “natural” causes?
Yet in the Northeast US the forests have grown back significantly in the last 50 years! Compare this aerial photograph of Princeton, NJ from 1947 with current Google earth images.
http://gisserver.princeton.edu:81/navigatorMapViewer.htm?map=819
The biggest implication that I can see from this is that if 50% of warming is due to land use changes, then the IPCC’s projection of temp increase by 2100 is wrong because land use changes will not have the large positive feedbacks that are assumed if all warming is due to greenhouse gasses.
So that’s it then.
The only way to save the planet is to get rid of the people!
DaveE.
And another 100% from adjustments made to the temperature record by the NOAA/NCDC/Thomas Karl.
Yeah, Atlanta is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425722190001&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1