Guest post by Indur M. Goklany
In this Reuters story (15 December 2009) they report: “Describing a ‘runaway melt’ of the Earth’s ice, rising tree mortality and prospects of severe water scarcities, Gore told a UN audience: ‘In the face of effects like these, clear evidence that only reckless fools would ignore, I feel a sense of frustration’ at the lack of agreement so far.”
Now to most people, “rising tree mortality” raises the specter of a world with less greenery. But how does real world data compare with the virtual modeled world? Is the world getting less greener? Is there any hint of the virtual world in the real world data?
Satellite data for the real world (not the one Mr. Gore lives in) can help give us an idea.
Global
Globally net primary productivity (NPP) has increased. As the IPCC’s WG II report (p. 106) says:
Satellite-derived estimates of global net primary production from satellite data of vegetation indexes indicate a 6% increase from 1982 to 1999, with large increases in tropical ecosystems (Nemani et al., 2003) [Figure 1]. The study by Zhou et al. (2003), also using satellite data, confirm that the Northern Hemisphere vegetation activity has increased in magnitude by 12% in Eurasia and by 8% in NorthAmerica from 1981 to 1999
Figure 1: Climate driven changes in global net primary productivity, 1982-1999. Source: Myneni (2006), p. 5. This is the same figure as in IPCC AR4WGII, p. 106, but with a different color scheme.
Amazonia
In a synthesis of long term ecological monitoring data across old growth Amazonia, Phillips et al (2008) find that from approximately 1988 to 2000 not only that the biomass of these tropical forests increased but that they have become more dynamic, that is, they have more stems, faster recruitment, faster mortality, faster growth and more lianas. These increases have occurred across regions and environmental gradients and through time for the lowland Neotropics and Amazonia. They note that the simplest explanation for this suite of results is that improved resource availability has increased net primary productivity, in turn increasing growth rates, which can all be explained by a long-term increase in a limiting resource. They suggest that this no-longer-limiting resource might be CO2, although other factors (e.g., insolation or diffuse radiation) may also play a role.
Gloor et al. (2009), based on analysis of data from 135 forest plots in old growth Amazonia from 1971 to 2006 show that the observed increase in aboveground biomass is not due to an artifact of limited spatial and temporal monitoring. They conclude that biomass has increased over the past 30 years (p. 2427).
These findings are consistent with satellite data that indicate that the net primary productivity of the Amazon increased substantially from 1982–99, a period that experienced considerable global warming (see Figure 1).
Sahel
Satellite Imagery shows that parts of the Sahara and Sahel are greening up consistent with the trend recorded in Figure 1 (Owen 2009). The United Nations’ Africa Report (Figure 2) notes:
“Greening of the Sahel as observed from satellite images is now well established, confirming that trends in rainfall are the main but not the only driver of change in vegetation cover. For the period 1982-2003, the overall trend in monthly maximum Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is positive over a large portion of the Sahel region, reaching up to 50 per cent increase in parts of Mali, Mauritania and Chad, and confirming previous findings at a regional scale.” (United Nations 2008: 41). Figure 2: Source: United Nations (2008),
Australia
Similarly, an Australia-wide analysis of satellite data for 1981–2006 indicates that vegetation cover has increased average of 8% (Donohue et al. 2009).
Figure 3: Australia, 1981-2006. Change in vegetation cover, as described by the fraction of Photosynthetically Active Radiation absorbed by vegetation (fPAR). Source: Donohue et al. (2009)
Canada
With respect to the northern latitudes, 22% of the vegetated area in Canada was found to have a positive vegetation trend from 1985–2006. Of these, 40% were in northern ecozones (Pouliot et al. 2009; see Figure 4).
Figure 4: Long term changes in vegetation for Canada, 1985-2006. Source: Pouliot, D A; Latifovic, R; Olthof (2009).
References
Donohue, Randall J.; Tim R. McVIcar; and Michael Roderick. (2009). Climate-related trends in Australian vegetation cover as inferred from satellite observations, 1981–2006. Global Change Biology doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2008.01746.x.
Gloor, M.: O. L. Phillips, J. J. Lloyd, et al. (2009). Does the disturbance hypothesis explain the biomass increase in basin-wide Amazon forest plot data? Global Change Biology 15: 2418–2430.
Phillips, Oliver L; Simon L Lewis, Timothy R Baker, Kuo-Jung Chao and Niro Higuchi (2008). The changing Amazon forest. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series B 2008 363, 1819-1827.
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Further reading
One recent WUWT post that also sheds some light on this issue:
Cosmic Rays and tree growth patterns linked
These next two are particularly relevant, because they show that trees have recently begun to respond positively to increased CO2 in the atmosphere:
EPA about to declare CO2 dangerous – ssshhh! – Don’t tell the trees
Surprise: Earths’ Biosphere is Booming, Satellite Data Suggests CO2 the Cause
Here in the Western US we have rising mortality of pine species as a result of disease and insect infestation. There are multiple factors at work. Firstly, the lack of management and fire suppression has resulted in massive inbreeding and downbreeding, never a good thing. Furthermore, the lack of fire and management has allowed understory to get way out of hand, resulting in changes in soil conditions fostering fungus issues. All of this put together makes the trees look like lunch to bugs and fungi. Definitely a man made issue but an issue having nothing to do with climate.
Did Gore jump the shark here? The last thing he needs is to loose the high school biology students.
Did anyone notice in Figure 2 “owing mainly to decreased cloud cover and the resulting increase in solar radiation”. The explanation is the very peculiar one that keeps the story in line.
Alarmist: CO2 causes more water vapour but somehow less clouds therefore more Sun and the sun helps plants grow.
Rational: CO2 directly helps plants grow.
Occam’s razor?
You know the IPCC is a marketing organization for global warming when they go through such lengths to avoid saying the obvious.
A good time for a reminder of the Christy/Schlesinger debate. I focused in on Schlesinger’s forest comments:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvgfb5d7lF8&feature=related
The Church of the Sacred cow.
They can clear millions of hectacres of trees for windfarms. Carbon indulgences here.
But they go ballistic when trees are removed for coal mining. Hypocrits
After coal mining, trees are replanted.
Kath (09:11:57) :
The Goracle gets a beating in this pdf by Burt Rutan.
http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/Rutan.AGWdataAnalysis%20v11.pdf
Scaled Composites, founded by Burt Rutan, is also the company that created Space Ship One.
Great suggestion. I am personally very familiar with Rutan, Scaled and his business. He uses carbon fiber in the aircraft. Actualy the Boeing that flew yesterday has a lot of carbon fiber. The leftist extremists are on one hand anti carbon. The reduction in weight creates great fuel savings.
Tour de france race us usually won on a carbon fibre bicycle.
what this means is that the carbon cycle is based on “junk-science”, estimates, extrapolations etc. Because man-made CO2 is only 7,000 bmt while natural CO2 is estimated at 200 bmt. Man creates only a small % of CO2. So if they are off by only a little bit with their “estimates”, the whole think is junk. Humans are likely only a small factor in the rise of CO2.
this picture is what man-made global warming is based on. and it is complete GUESS!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ynOO15XuGnc/SiScFwJLYVI/AAAAAAAABW0/nK8bD_W0dXY/s1600-h/carbon_cycle.jpg
more
http://www.nofreewind.com/2009/06/man-made-and-natural-co2-in-atmosphere.html
Hey Al! I’ve got a new one for you. If humanity doesn’t change its evil ways,by 2050 the Sahara may be sand free! I have to admit it doesn’t have quite the panic inducing potential of all that bilge about the Arctic ice. Although I’ve never been entirely clear on why the possible disappearance of Arctic sea for less than a month each year is something we need to panic about. Oops, I forgot about the polar bears. But I figure, for about the price of putting on COP15, we could arrange to airdrop a package of Omaha steaks on every polar bear in the Arctic 3 or 4 times a week for the next 30 yrs.
oops easy to get the units mixed up. I believe that it 7 bmt and 200 bmt.
‘John R. Walker (03:45:44) :
Here’s an example of Gore-driven increasing tree mortality:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/12/16/fears-quarter-of-wales-largest-woodland-will-be-felled-for-wind-farm-91466-25399887/
Up to 30% of the largest forest in Wales may have to be cleared to plant a giant inefficient subsidy wind farm…
Stupidity and greed have no boundaries…’
Worse – they claim to revere the environment, but have blended out the damage to the land caused by massive deforestation, especially on mountains.
Tree roots help to keep the thin soil on the bedrock.
To my knowledge, Wind mills don’t have roots …
Expect landslides and flash floods from rainfall run-offs, since there will be hardly any soil left to act as reservoir.
Saving the earth by destroying the environment – go for it!
Apologies: I have just listened to the Radio 4 iplayer replay of News at One- it was Bianca Jagger who said that things were not as they should be, not the Danish chair. However, I do find the fact of the chairwoman’s resignation (as opposed to just handing over to the Danish Prime Minister) distinctly odd and her defence of her action unconvincing.
which is effectively a tax on the weather.
That was an OLD joke. From around forty years ago. “Next thing you know, the politicians will be taxing the weather.”
(Probably originated around 4000 years ago.)
“O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.”
Al “Goofy” Gore rides again in Copenhagen:
VG – the biggest newspaper in Norway – has the following story from Copenhagen:
“Støre and Gore presented wrong numbers in Copenhagen. During the presentation of the report, the former vice president said that new research show that the North Pole can be totally ice free within five years. – “This is fresh numbers. Some of the numbers from Dr Maslowski indicates that there is 75 percent chance for that the whole North Pole becomes totally ice free from five to eight years”, said Gore according to the British newspaper The Times”…”But now it’s clear that the researcher that Gore referenced, absolutely not will be responsible for the numbers presented.”
– “I don’t know where these numbers come from. I would never have estimated anything as accurate as this” says the climate researcher Masalowski.
Gores associates have now come forward and admitted that the numbers were wrong, according to the newspaper VG:
http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/klimatrusselen/artikkel.php?artid=599317
I agree that he is most likely making reference to the mountain pine beetle. As with the recent disappearance of a type of salmon, BC “experts” have concluded that these events are caused by anthropogenic global warming. I think I heard “Gore Canada” (Desiree McGraw is her name if I remember correctly) talking about this in an interview the other day. I’m pretty sure I’ve also heard BC premier Gordon Campbell talking about this in the Canadian news. CTV interviewers seem excited that Canada is expected to get the “colossal fossil award” at Copenhagen. The talk is turning to how to offload oilsands costs to the USA & other sectors of the economy. I’m not sure that reality has any bearing on anything anymore.
I saw in my travels that a deal on deforestation was nigh in Copen – hoggen.
Gore is no doubt trying to leverage this area of agreement.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/world/story/8ADB83AF5D20DE358625768E000DCF1D?OpenDocument
Response to:
” John Egan (07:40:19) :
Surely – You are aware of the massive die-off in the forests of western North America due to pine bark beetle infestation?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/science/18trees.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=robbins%20beetles&st=cse
I feel rather confident that Gore is making reference to this – and, thus, is not stretching any truth. One can have massive forest die-off in temperate and sub-Arctic regions due to increased temperatures – esp. the lack of extreme cold – and still have an overall increase in global vegetation.
Methinks you protesteth too much.”
John, why don’t you run an experiment for all of us:
1. Gather up a small active colony of Pine Beetles with an adequate volume of pine habitat at locally ambient temperature.
2. In a controlled environment, lower the temperature 1 degree C, and wait for the beetles to die.
3. Tired of waiting? Now drop it another degree… and another….etc…
4. Get back to us when this kills them.
The article you provided notes the infestation is greatest in BC and Alberta.
Greater so than forests in the lower 48. If temperature were a deciding factor, I should think you would see the infestation migrate north among most temperate climes…
With winter temps such as they are in MO, WY, and Canada, you’re going to need a commercial freezer to conduct this experiment.
“Reckless fools”?
As opposed to rich, hypocritical, carbon-spewing twits?
I’m beginning to think it’s axiomatic that every Al Gore picture deserves a caption. My candidate for the above is:
(reporter wrestling with Algoregoons to keep his microphone) “Mr. Gore, how many of your brain cells remain in your head?“
Or maybe: It took a while, but I finally got my finger unstuck from my forehead.
I know, I know, it was his left hand that got stuck to his forehead; but big Al confuses easily.
Gore is the sceptics best friend. The nonsense he comes out with you just couldn’t make up yourself. The nodding dogs that bark in appreciation of his every word expose themselves as suggestible fools.
So trees die when the weather gets warmer? Like how much warmer? Sahara warmer? Or Siberia getting as warm as Sevenoaks warmer? I thought tree-rings were supposed to show greater tree growth in warmer temperatures? Or do they show greater tree growth in higher concentrations of CO2? Or both? Maybe they are justy growing too fast. Exploding upwards from the ground at unprecendented rates and then collapsing with growth exhaustion.
My background (long ago) was mathematics, minor in physics. Probably more important, was a course in philosophy entitled “scientific method’. In following the current debate, it became obvious pretty early that the CRU folks evidently needed a bit more training in that.
Among all the stuff floating around out there I noticed a video of a dad/son project, where they used some GSFC NASA data. They were focused on separate analysis of rural / urban temperature change from 1990 to current. That eliminates lots of data, but they still ended up with a number of sites. I don’t recall whether they used raw data or data that has some “normalizations” applied. I believe it was just annual data that they examined, so about 100+ data points per station. They dealt only with “pairs”; that is for each urban area (pop. > 150,000) they selected at least one “nearby” rural location (pop. < 10,000).
They apparently looked at temperature "differences" by station over time. That would seem to retain consistency by station unless the record instruments were replaced or repositioned. It wouldn't seem to matter in that case whether some stations had instruments nearer to the ground, or if daily temperatures were taken at somewhat different times of day. So it seems they could have used raw data just as easily as "normalized" data, with not much variation in results.
They aggregated these differences (again, this is my notion from what their video covered) by two separate groups, urban and rural. They used least squares to fit a line separately to the each. Urban showed a slow buildup in temperature from 1900, building to up to a degree or two (don't recall, C or F). The "rural" subset showed NO change over time. Apparently there was no other commentary on those results by dad/son (or I missed that).
But… there are definitely some possible implications. First, it showed that the urban heating was not spilling over into the nearby rural areas. But, more important, the lack of temp increase for 100+ years in the nearby rural areas would seem to imply there has been no global warming. If no global warming in the rural areas, one has to assume that there was also no global warming in the urban areas – warming in the urban areas was all due to "heat sink" area.
Because of the 100 year of data requirement, this may not be representative of the earth – it may well have only involved US stations. But why would global warming, if any, not indeed be "global" and therefore show up in the rural reading?
I was tempted to get the data and try to replicate their result, but that looks like more work than I want to undertake. Besides, some of you closer to the subject may already have that data available and, if so, also know a lot more than a novice (that's me) about the state of that data.
Last I heard was that we have satellite data showing no data for the past two decades. If there's really been no warming for the past 100 years, that would seem to be coup de grace for IPCC. (Altho their actions alone, let alone the "liberated" email, should have long since put that issue to rest.)
Comments solicited, please. (denis@ablesfamily.com)
..oops a couple of typos in previous. Perhaps only important one is that my statement on satellite temperature recordings should have said “showing no warming” for the past two decades.
Vincent (05:25:09) :
“BTW for the Brits on this site, Mr.McBlunder and his glove puppet sidekick Miliband Minor recently referred to sceptics as “flat earthers”
I like to think of Flash Gordon saving the planet (you have to be old to get that one, also Americans don’t do irony, I am told), and the mis-spelling “Milliband,” indicating 0.999 short of a full band.
The noted cases of pine beetle infestation being brought up here as possible explanations of the Goracle’s pronouncement do no more than prove just how badly the whole debate of impacts is based on anecdote. If a tree dies in my garden (or a forest in my province) it is a local disaster, but has nothing to do with the global situation.
Forest cover in North America has been increasing since the late 1800s as re-forestation of the areas logged out during the 1700’s and early 1800s has taken place on a massive scale. Similarly, as Indur Goklany’s article notes, across the globe, increases of NPP have been measured ever since satellite observation was begun.
If you are going to talk global effects, you have to make sure your numbers actually relate to the globe and you are not just picking an anecdote. It is hard to avoid this (every weather event is an anecdote in relation to climate), but we have to make people justify their pronouncements on this or we simply end up in a game of my anecdote trumps your anecdote.
Denis Ables (11:33:47) :
The video you mentioned is probably this one, posted here last week
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/picking-out-the-uhi-in-global-temperature-records-so-easy-a-6th-grader-can-do-it/
You may find the comments thread useful. I would also recommend visiting The Chiefio by E.M Smith, listed in the blogroll above. He’s done some significant analysis on the dramatic reduction in reporting stations and the shift in those that remain from cooler to warmer areas. If you check the other blogs listed their is also a lot of information available. CO2 Science is particularly good on the MWP. Climate Audit and The Air Vent are great, but the stats discussion is at a fairly sophisticated level.
I don’t suggest that you should believe it all, but I think you’ll come to realize that the notion that all of this is “settled” is the main reason to decide which side of the controversy is talking through their hats. Good Luck
J Mann (07:17:22) :
“I am not an Al Gore fan, but I think he was talking about some stories that got reported in 08 and 09 that old growth forests are dieing at an increasing rate due to longer summers.”
But are the longer summers due to CO2? If yes, then where is your evidence?
JohnS (07:17:34) :
“Gore is not completely out to lunch on this one, as there have been several large-scale mortality events that have caught the attention of the forestry community (residents of Alberta, Colorado, and Arizona, in particular, know what I mean, because they have front-row seats).”
Local events are one thing but in Indur M. Goklany’s post he is saying there is evidence for plant growth INCREASES in large areas / continents the alarmists have cited to be in danger because of man-made CO2 increases.
You must have mis-understood him. Mr. Gore was talking about “rising tree morality”, a phenomenon based on the changing social mores of communities of trees.