From the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center blog:
“The chief culprit appears to be climate change, more specifically, the rising levels of atmospheric CO2, higher temperatures and longer growing seasons.”
This jibes well with what NASA has been seeing globally via satellite measurements:
Surprise: Earths’ Biosphere is Booming, Satellite Data Suggests CO2 the Cause
And what has been found by the University of Wisconsin in Madison:
Greenhouse gas carbon dioxide ramps up aspen growth
Here’s the full report from the Smithsonian:
Forests are growing faster, climate change appears to driving accelerated growth
Speed is not a word typically associated with trees; they can take centuries to grow. However, a new study to be published the week of Feb. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found evidence that forests in the Eastern United States are growing faster than they have in the past 225 years. The study offers a rare look at how an ecosystem is responding to climate change.
Liriodendron tulipifera
, or tulip poplar, is a common tree in the temperate forests surrounding the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Other species include sweetgum, American beech, and southern red oak. Photo: Kirsten Bauer.For more than 20 years forest ecologist Geoffrey Parker has tracked the growth of 55 stands of mixed hardwood forest plots in Maryland. The plots range in size, and some are as large as 2 acres. Parker’s research is based at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, 26 miles east of the nation’s capital.
Parker’s tree censuses have revealed that the forest is packing on weight at a much faster rate than expected. He and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute postdoctoral fellow Sean McMahon discovered that, on average, the forest is growing an additional 2 tons per acre annually. That is the equivalent of a tree with a diameter of 2 feet sprouting up over a year.
Forest ecologist Jess Parker began his tree censuses his first day on the job: September 8, 1987. Photo: Kirsten Bauer.
Forests and their soils store the majority of the Earth’s terrestrial carbon stock. Small changes in their growth rate can have significant ramifications in weather patterns, nutrient cycles, climate change and biodiversity. Exactly how these systems will be affected remains to be studied.
Parker and McMahon’s paper focuses on the drivers of the accelerated tree growth. The chief culprit appears to be climate change, more specifically, the rising levels of atmospheric CO2, higher temperatures and longer growing seasons.
Assessing how a forest is changing is no easy task. Forest ecologists know that the trees they study will most likely outlive them. One way they compensate for this is by creating a “chronosequence”—a series of forests plots of the same type that are at different developmental stages. At SERC, Parker meticulously tracks the growth of trees in stands that range from 5 to 225 years old. This allowed Parker and McMahon to verify that there was accelerated growth in forest stands young and old. More than 90% of the stands grew two to four times faster than predicted from the baseline chronosequence.
Parker, his colleagues and a team of citizen scientists have tagged more than 20,000 trees at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Photo: Kirsten Bauer.
By grouping the forest stands by age, McMahon and Parker were also able to determine that the faster growth is a recent phenomenon. If the forest stands had been growing this quickly their entire lives, they would be much larger than they are.
Parker estimates that among himself, his colleague Dawn Miller and a cadre of citizen scientists, they have taken a quarter of a million measurements over the years. Parker began his tree census work Sept. 8, 1987—his first day on the job. He measures all trees that are 2 centimeters or more in diameter. He also identifies the species, marks the tree’s coordinates and notes if it is dead or alive.
By knowing the species and diameter, McMahon is able to calculate the biomass of a tree. He specializes in the data-analysis side of forest ecology. “Walking in the woods helps, but so does looking at the numbers,” said McMahon. He analyzed Parker’s tree censuses but was hungry for more data.
Parker uses diameter tape or ‘d-tape’ to measure the trees. The tape is calibrated to convert the tree’s circumference, the measurement used to determine a tree’s biomass. Photo: Kirsten Bauer.
It was not enough to document the faster growth rate; Parker and McMahon wanted to know why it might be happening. “We made a list of reasons these forests could be growing faster and then ruled half of them out,” said Parker. The ones that remained included increased temperature, a longer growing season and increased levels of atmospheric CO2.
During the past 22 years CO2 levels at SERC have risen 12%, the mean temperature has increased by nearly three-tenths of a degree and the growing season has lengthened by 7.8 days. The trees now have more CO2 and an extra week to put on weight. Parker and McMahon suggest that a combination of these three factors has caused the forest’s accelerated biomass gain.
Ecosystem responses are one of the major uncertainties in predicting the effects of climate change. Parker thinks there is every reason to believe his study sites are representative of the Eastern deciduous forest, the regional ecosystem that surrounds many of the population centers on the East Coast. He and McMahon hope other forest ecologists will examine data from their own tree censuses to help determine how widespread the phenomenon is.
These findings are also important for policymakers trying to address climate change. Future carbon cap-and-trade rules will need to quantify the amount of carbon forests hold. If faster growth rates prove the norm, this could affect the formulas and the dollar value assigned to forests that are cut or conserved.
Parker and McMahon don’t expect SERC’s forest to continue growing at this accelerated rate forever. Some day the growth rate will level off. When that happens, they wonder how that will affect CO2 levels. If trees are sponges that absorb CO2, what will happen to CO2 levels in the atmosphere when the trees become saturated? It’s a question for further exploration. In the meantime, Parker will continue walking through the SERC woods, tape measure in hand carefully tracking the growth of the trees.
PNAS will make the study available online sometime this week at this link: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0912376107.
A bit off topic but may be of interest.
Roger Pielke Jr was interviewed on BBC Newsnight tonight. Chris Field (Chair of IPCC WG) was also on the programme. Rather surprisingly, the Beeb were quite critical of the IPCC. Pielke certainly came across better than Field but I sense a trap. I reckon the BBC are building up the weaker sceptic arguments so they can knock them down them down at a later date.
Ignored is the millions of trees lost or severely mangled in the midwest and plains in the last few years by ice storms. Or the scores of people killed and injured, either immediately or later during the cleanups. Not to mention the decimated wildlife. This is the inconvenient TRUTH that keeps on being basically ignored by mainstream media and even climate science organizations or sources. Shame!
January 2009 Central Plains and Midwest ice storm – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2009_Central_Plains_and_Midwest_ice_storm
Snow and ice storm, January 27-28, 2009 – National Radar Imagery
http://www.njfreeways.com/weather/2009/28-Jan-09-NationalRadarImagery.html
Snow and ice storm, January 27-28, 2009 – Surface Maps
http://www.njfreeways.com/weather/2009/28-Jan-09-SurfaceMaps.html
Since when did trees regrow themselves? Aren’t they all being logged and carried off by greedy capitalists?
Next they will be telling us new research says animals exhale CO2 and fart methane. Sheesh what to do.
Most already knew the tree cover today is higher than it was in the time of the founding. who doesn’t like trees and plant their own around their place?
@ur momisugly Phil (15:06:25) : Love this. 🙂 Killer trees, indeed! ROFLMAO
In nearly three years of visiting here, here I am going off topic. Sorry, but I just had an epiphany. It stings.
I have just watched the Channel 4 evening news re-run here;
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1529573111
I am furious, incredulous and stunned in equal measure.
“Bob” Watson debating with Nigel Lawson and Jon Snow being quite fair handed. No complaints with that, or Channel 4’s coverage. Lawson was relaxed, articulate, polite and patient. But Watson.
To paraphrase Watson- “Sea levels are rising and this is the hottest decade on record”
Nothing much more than the normal alarmist clap-trap? Nope, watch the guy, he actually believes that what he is saying is true – watch him flinch when Lawson says, again I paraphrase, “if population rises to a certain level and stops we may say it is at its highest level ever, yet it has stopped growing..” and “.. in the last 50 years the sea level has risen at the same rate as it did during the previous 50.”
Watson holds a senior government position so I would expect him to toe the line. I would expect him to lie just as Blair did to the enquiry into the Iraq war, barefacedly if necessary, but to exhibit all the body language of someone convinced that what they say is real…..
This is what we face guys. They have convinced them selves that this; http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ is something to be alarmed about, Phil Jones will eventually be exonerated and we will all fry by 2043 because we are in an interglacial.
Just as I was beginning to feel that maybe the tide was turning.
The plants we mostly rely upon to eat, the flowering plants, became widespread 100 million years ago, when CO2 levels were five times higher than what they are now. If plants were doing climate science, instead of we humans, they would conclude that atmospheric CO2 is at starvation levels.
Hansen’s danger level of 350 ppm begs the question of what the ideal CO2 level would be. Taking a cue from greenhouse operators, it is at least 1,000 ppm.
Atmospheric CO2 got down to 180 ppm during the ice ages. Plant growth stops below 150 ppm. Terrestrial life on this planet almost got wiped out. Hansen’s 350 ppm should be considered the minimum safe level for life on this planet.
Surely this enhanced tree growth must be a bad thing?
Forest and wild-fires will become more intense. Damage to life and property will increase. Greater volumes of CO2 will pour into the atmosphere leading to catastrophic acceleration of Global Warming, precipitation and plant-fertiliser.
By 2035, large tracts of the world will be covered with a dense jungle of super-trees that will severely restrict the land available for bio-fuel production.
This effect will be exacerbated by the premature melting of glaciers and ice-caps due to reduced albedo brought about by the soot deposited by “dirty wood”
Sea levels will inundate coastal regions and make hitherto “safe” areas susceptible to Tsunamis.
You may think me as somewhat alarmist but consider this.
If one stunted tree in Yamal can nearly bring the economy of the world to its knees, then just imagine the damage that innumerable legions of giant timbers could inflict!
Forget the recent gates, the Mother of all Gates is “EntGate”
(Grant application pending)
If there are more trees, won’t they convert more CO2 into Oxygen? Is it possible that this might be a feedback mechanism that nature has created to lessen CO2 in the atmoshpere? Just thinking.
Oh dear! I kinda suspected it all along but there it is: Macbeth is us and Dunsinane Hill is industrial civilization! We shall never vanquish’d be until great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against us. Lo and behold, the day has come! With waters rising and forests on the march, where shall we hide [our decline]?
On topic.
It seems their fears have lead to nothing but complaining and spin. They have missed their own discovery of one of the mysterious “hidden” CO2 sinks.
“Trees become saturated?” Hmm… At what PPM do trees become saturated? Limited by ground moisture levels?
A possible studies would be to see if seeds are also vitalized by increased CO2 prompting denser tree spacing and expanding forests?
Wonder if Mr. Parker has some insight to these questions already and could post here?
joe (13:48:04) :
Careful, the earth did warm somewhat, mainly in the 70’s through the 90’s. Trees are great. Cool the earth even if the sun has a tizzy again. ( But relax, don’t think it was caused by your car and trip to work. 😀 )
3 Feb: The Australian: Report undercuts Kevin Rudd’s Great Barrier Reef wipeout
(Prime Minister) KEVIN Rudd’s insistence that the Great Barrier Reef could be “destroyed beyond recognition” by global warming grates with new science suggesting it will again escape temperature-related coral bleaching. ..
But for the second year running, the reef has defied predictions of its imminent demise, with researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science reporting that mass coral bleaching was unlikely this summer ..
Mr Rudd’s warning reflects the findings of the 2007 report of the IPCC that is under intensifying fire for exaggerating the threat to Himalayan glaciers and the Amazon rainforest. The IPCC predicted the reef would be subject to annual bleaching by 2030 if climate change continued unchecked, destroying much of its coral cover.
But after scouring 14 sites at the vulnerable southern end of the GBR last month, the team from Townsville-based AIMS found only a only a handful of “slightly stressed reefs”…
Those fears have been now been substantially allayed, with the AIMS scientists, including Kerryn Johns, finding no sign of endemic bleaching on Swains reefs, east of Yeppoon in central Queensland, and only a few cases where corals appeared slightly stressed in the nearby Capricorn Bunker area.
The leader of AIMS’s long-term reef monitoring program, Hugh Sweatman, said the reef was “not at a threshold” to bleach widely.
“We saw literally a handful of colonies that are looking pale, mainly in the Capricorn area,” he told The Australian, outlining the survey team’s preliminary findings. “But you get that every year. So there is no evidence of concerted bleaching across the reef whatsoever.”…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/report-undercuts-kevin-rudds-great-barrier-reef-wipeout/story-e6frg6nf-1225826128644
Reuters: New Hampshire: Obama: cap-and-trade may be separate in Senate bill
“The most controversial aspects of the energy debate that we’ve been having: the House passed an energy bill and people complained that, ‘well, there’s this cap-and-trade thing,'” Obama told the crowd.
“We may be able to separate these things out. And it’s conceivable that that’s where the Senate ends up,” he continued…
http://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINN0210631520100202
O/T but this is incredible. The Guardin are running a whole string of articles now by Fred Pearce (the journalist responsible for getting the 2035 date into New Scientist) as if he is making scopps, breaking news. This stuff is over 2 months out of date!! There must be great scope for plagiarism now, and much of the investigative journalism has been done, and even books published on Climategate! Yet George Monbiot praises Pearce to the hilt as one of the best journalists ever!
Look at this, entitled “Climate change emails between scientists reveal flaws in peer review – A close reading of the hacked emails exposes the real process of science, its jealousies and tribalism”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/02/hacked-climate-emails-flaws-peer-review
Oh well, I suppose Guardian readers are starting to hear about it now, two months overdue.
My little chunk of Ozark forest has been doing really well except for the occasional ice storm. The trees are coming back, the wild grape vines make some incredible wine and the birds are all really happy I let the Staghorn Sumac get up over 20 feet tall. Now, how do we get the CO2 levels up over 800 ppm. so I don’t have to wait as long to see the fruits and such.
While it is warming:
“Food supplies are running out on the German island of Hiddensee in the Baltic Sea.
Winter weather has cut off Hiddensee’s 1000 inhabitants from the outside world since last Thursday, and also left a number of tourists stranded.
An attempt to reach the island with an icebreaker on Monday failed. Fresh foodstuffs like bread and butter are no longer available and supplies of potatoes and vegetables are running low.
Today, a helicopter is being sent to Hiddensee with food and medicine.”
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/ice-bound-german-island-low-supplies
Where`s the weather station situated that shows the 0.3c increase over the last 20 years.
Isn’t this just a (negative) feedback loop in action?
The more CO2 is released, the more is being taken back….
@Harold Blue Tooth (14:11:47) :
Onset of spring starting earlier across the
Northern Hemisphere
Schwartz, 2006
https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/mds/www/Schwartz_etal_2006.pdf
https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/mds/www/Schwartz_etal_2006.pdf
I don’t understand something.
Some of you have commented about what might happen when an area of land becomes “saturated” with trees. That makes sense; they’d crowd each other so much that they’d use up all the available sunlight, nutrients and water, and some level of balance would be achieved and maintain. But the context of the word “saturated” in the article was “If trees are sponges that absorb CO2, what will happen to CO2 levels in the atmosphere when the trees become saturated?” That seems to be saying that a tree can only absorb (digest? contain? soak up?) so much CO2. Seems to me that there wouldn’t be any limit to how much CO2 a tree could soak up, as the tree would just . . . grow. At some point, the tree gets too tall or wide and falls over, but while it’s alive, would it ever become “saturated” with CO2?
@DirkH
“Must be written by the OTHER George Monbiot. They must have two of them”
Yes, the “other” one did this shameful “cut out and keep” denier card set.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/mar/09/climate-change-deniers-monbiot-cards?picture=344343782
I’ll certainly be keeping these in evidence, thanks George.
John (and knowledgeable dendro students):
I took a look at your link to NAS:
source: http://www.pnas.org/content/106/48/20348.full?sid=b283a84e-425f-479c-bebc-be883c9752c6
A very interesting study, although irritating when they talk about increased growth due to CO2 “pollution.” I was interested in the following statement:
“Above the transition elevation (≈3,320 m to 3,470 m in the White Mountains), ring width is strongly positively associated with temperature and also is weakly positively associated with precipitation. Below the transition elevation, ring width is strongly negatively associated with temperature and also is strongly positively associated with precipitation.”
Could the precipitation association reflect anything more than the lower trees getting more runoff than the higher? Do they do anything to try to assess the effects of runoff?
So can we take this as confirmation that atmospheric carbon is increasing, and that this particular locale has been warming?
Being a Brit, I don’t know the enviro-political stance of this paper but the Washington Times has reached an editorial position on AGW and carbon:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/02/osama-and-obama-on-global-warming/
‘The hitch is that the man-caused catastrophic global warming theory is dead, and it needs to be buried. Evidence had been mounting for years that there were problems with the global warming model; most telling was that the globe refused to warm up. Carbon emissions continued apace, but the world began cooling. This is why true believers abandoned the “global warming” brand name and tried to shift the debate to the more ambiguous label “climate change,” which is something the rest of us like to refer to as “weather.” ‘
(Sorry, posted this on a much earlier thread but think it deserves a repeat here. Pretty please mods.)
sounds like phil thinks he’s staying!
3 Feb:UK Times:Ben Webster: Phil Jones, scientist in climate data row, promises to be more open
He said: “We are facing more and more public scrutiny and any future work we do is going to have much greater scrutiny by our peers and by the public. We do need to make more of the data available, I fully accept that.
“We need to work differently, making more data available and making our assumptions clear. Everything needs to be more and more open and we will be striving to do that in the future.” ..
In an interview with the Press Association, Professor Jones said: “I feel tremendously pressurised by all this but I’m trying to continue my work in the science. I think it’s very important and it’s potentially very serious for the future of mankind in decades to come.”
He said he “wholeheartedly” stood by the part of the IPCC’s report to which he had contributed.
He added: “The work we do at the University of East Anglia is only a small part of [climate science], there’s thousands of climate scientists around the world supporting our results.”
He said he was concerned that scepticism about climate change appeared to be growing.
“It makes me quite worried people are beginning to doubt the climate has warmed up.” …
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7013060.ece
BBC: UEA e-mails leak climate scientist defends his work
The paper also used records from Australia and what was then the USSR, over which no questions had ever been raised, he said.
He said that some of the Chinese sites may have moved to warmer or cooler places, and that it was the large scale average that was the key issue. ..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/norfolk/8494497.stm