Is that a scary thing?
Guest post by Indur M. Goklany
In its October 14, 2010 issue, Nature magazine (p. 755) reports on a paper by JMG Hudson and G HR Henry, Increased plant biomass in a High Arctic heath community from 1981 to 2008, Ecology 90:2657–2663 (2009). (PDF ) It notes that, based on data collected from study plots over a 13-year period and survey data covering 27 years on the tundra of Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada, an area where both temperatures and the length of the growing season has increased in recent decades:
“The biomass of mosses has increased by 74% and that of evergreen shrubs by 60%. The total biomass of the system has increased significantly, and vegetation has grown taller. But because there was plenty of open ground at the site into which plants could expand, these changes did not result in decreases in any group. The research indicates that climate change has already begun to increase plant productivity in the high Arctic.”
The abstract of the paper states:
“The Canadian High Arctic has been warming for several decades. Over this period, tundra plant communities have been influenced by regional climate change, as well as other disturbances… [W]e measured biomass and composition changes in a heath community over 13 years using a point-intercept method in permanent plots (1995–2007) and over 27 years using a biomass harvest comparison (1981–2008). Results from both methods indicate that the community became more productive over time, suggesting that this ecosystem is currently in transition. Bryophyte and evergreen shrub abundances increased, while deciduous shrub, forb, graminoid, and lichen cover did not change. Species diversity also remained unchanged. Because of the greater evergreen shrub cover, canopy height increased. From 1995 to 2007, mean annual temperature and growing season length increased at the site. Maximum thaw depth increased, while soil water content did not change. We attribute the increased productivity of this community to regional warming over the past 30–50 years. This study provides the first plot-based evidence for the recent pan-Arctic increase in tundra productivity detected by satellite-based remote-sensing and repeat-photography studies. These types of ground-level observations are critical tools for detecting and projecting long-term community-level responses to warming.”
In its penultimate paragraph, the paper admits that:
“The mechanisms for the observed increased productivity are unclear. However, it is likely that warming directly increased plant growth and reproduction and indirectly increased resource supply (Shaver et al. 2001). Increased temperatures also lengthened the growing season, increased soil temperature, deepened the active layer, and consequently may have influenced nutrient uptake in this plant community.”
Notably, the paper does not directly address the role, if any, that nitrogen and carbon fertilization may have played in the increased productivity. [One might argue this is implicit in the phrase in the above that refers to “indirectly increased resource supply.” If so, it’s a pretty sloppy piece of writing.] In any case, based on its findings, it expresses some skepticism about claims that many heath species may be endangered:
“Although many heath species are predicted to become endangered by their inferior competitive abilities (Callaghan et al. 2005), our results indicate that heath plant communities may persist in a warmer future in the High Arctic.”
The paper also points out that its findings are consistent with satellite-based analyses that show increasing productivity in the Arctic area. See the earlier WUWT post, Another Al Gore Reality Check: “Rising tree mortality”?, that shows that it is not only the Arctic region that has greened up, but also the Sahel, Australia, the Amazonia, and the world as a whole.
So, going back to the heading of this piece, is increased biological productivity something to be scared about?
The answer is “yes” only if:
(a) Any change is bad, which apparently many in the environmental community believe reflexively, AND
(b) Nature (including humanity) cannot adapt to any warming that might result.
But an increase in productivity isn’t just any change. It actually makes more resources available to life forms that rely on them for sustenance. That is, it could lead to more abundant, if not more diverse, species. Moreover, we know that nature has encountered as much if not greater warming in the Arctic regions before, and is none the worse for it. See, for example, CO2 Science’s Medieval Warming Project Interactive Map and Time Domain Plot.
henrythethird says:
October 29, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Henry do you have a link to
And from another source:
“…One of the most remote places on Earth, Ellesmere Island has experienced little human activity (see ARCTIC EXPLORATION). However, archaeological evidence shows that the fjords of Hazen Plateau were occupied some 4000 years ago. Excavations of THULE-culture winter houses on BACHE PENINSULA (mid-island), dating from 1250-1350 AD, have uncovered numerous Norse artifacts…”
Thanks
Sandy S
From a letter I recently wrote my brother:
“…One thing that has happened is that at some point it became politically incorrect to believe in the MWP (Medieval Warm Period). Therefore, simply because I love Viking lore, I constantly find myself with a case of foot-in-mouth disease, because I dare suggest it was warmer a thousand years ago than it is now. Furthermore, I suggest a return to those conditions is greatly to be desired, but unfortunately is unlikely to happen. You’d be surprised at the backlash I get.
Because of my interest in the MWP, I’ve watched with great interest as attempts are made to again raise crops, and herd sheep and goats, in Greenland. Despite having imported hay and despite having tractors, which the Vikings lacked, I think modern Danes have a long way to go to approach the Viking’s success. Just consider this factoid, from the following interesting paper:
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp04/mq22551.pdf
“For the Vatnaverfi district of the Eastern Settlement it is estimated that
100,000 sheep and goats may have been pastured at the height of the
Norse period (Jacobsen 1987). The resources these animals required included
about 700,000,000 kg of hay and between 36,500,000 to 73,000,000 litres of water
annually or 1,917,808 kg of fodder and 100,000 to 200,000 litres of water daily.”
(I should add that the Eastern Settlement was the more northern and smaller of the two major Greenland Settlements that we know about….)”
My letter went on from there to discuss other lore involving Vikings. The more you study the subject the more obvious it is the MWP was a more benign situation, and the onset of the LIA a dramatic, disasterous change.
One battle I have with my goats every winter is keeping the water unfrozen. (I’m too cheap to pay for wiring my stables and buying those expensive, electric heated-water-buckets.) Just imagine the Greenland Vikings trying to deal with watering 100,000. It had to be warmer.
Warmer and more productive. Something to be yearned for.
The 14C age of the methane and CO2 given off from thawed permafrost has always intrigued me. The Siberian data indicates that the carbon was fixed between 9000 and 5000 years ago.
Pity this has not been done systematically.
Our market has been selling Yukon Gold spuds for years. No wait, Yukon bananas? Yum!!!
For info on the ancient habitations on Ellesmere Island see:
“Ellesmere Island: Eskimo and Viking finds in the High Arctic” by Peter Schledermann (of AINA) National Geographic mag. May 1981 pp. 574-601. You might be able to find other articles online by Schledermann as he made several archeological trips to the high Arctic. The NatGeo article is probably in your local public library.
The Bache peninsula is near a natural polyna which melts out early in the summer due to shallow seafloor, tidal currents, and shape of the shoreline, making a good place for habitation. He determined Eskimo habitations and Viking artifacts such as medieval chain mail, knife blades, and woolen cloth found near them.
u.k.(us) says:
October 29, 2010 at 5:38 pm
“Talk about persistance, they survived the last ice age.
If I’m not mistaken, plant DNA is 1000 (or something) times longer than human DNA. In other words, plants can handle anything natural variation throws at them.”
Warm-blooded animals can operate their biochemistry under constant conditions, while cold-blooded and plant life has to use different chemical pathways depending on the temperature. So we get along with far less enzymes for the same purpose. This could explain why plants need such large genomes. It’s not a contradiction to your conclusion – yes, they are prepared for temperature swings, they have to be.
Here is another, perhaps analogous inconvenient truth.
Between 1982 and at least 2007 i.e. a period of 25 years or more, the surface partial pressure of CO2 over the great Southern Ocean (SO) i.e. over the entire part of the SH below 40 S, actually lagged INCREASINGLY below the global average CO2 partial pressure. This was determined by me from assessing ‘offical’ NOAA data which employs many monitoring stations over the SO right down to the South Pole.
In other words the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 over the SO was becoming INCREASINGLY slower relatively to the global rate of increase, over that entire quarter century. It is likely that the ‘increased lagging’ trend in CO2 continues to the present day – certainly it was continuing last time I looked.
IMO the only plausible reason why this has been (and probably still is) occurring is adaptation by the vast biomass of cyanobacteria (phytoplankton, algage) in the SO i.e. an increase in net phytoplanktonic primary production of the SO, in response to the rise in partail pressure of CO2. As far as I know, any temperature rise of the SO over the last 30-odd years has been almost negligible – certainly negligible in terms of phytoplanktonic growth rates.
Now you won’t find this startling fact in the peer reviewed literature! I wrote about this phenomenon, and some other curious observatiuons about NH oceanic cyanobacteria, in April 2009 here:
http://landshape.org/enm/oceanic-cayanobacteria-in-the-modern-global-cycle/
I read the paper but it leaves me hanging. They measured (ocular estimate) the biomass in 1995, 2000, and 2007. Uncertainty aside, “evergreen shrub ABM [above ground biomass] increased by 60% and bryophyte ABM increased by 74%.”
Yep. Plants have a propensity to grow. The biomass in my yard has increased since 1995. The biomass in the Willamette National Forest up the hill has increased 10-fold over the last 185 years. The stuff has a way of accumulating.
Excuse me if my shock and awe at biomass increase is less than expected, but big whoop. There are no controls in this retrospective observational “experiment” with one rat [i.e. one experimental unit]. Nothing out of the usual was observed. Alleged “warming” cannot be considered a causal factor since no “effect” was established.
To: sandyinderby
October 30, 2010 at 5:32 am
“…Henry do you have a link to…”
Sorry, thought the link was there.
Came from The Canadian Encyclopedia (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0002578).
Wouldn’t have thought to look here, especially with a sub-heading of “The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada”.
I need to correct a mistake I always make, that I made yet again in my last comment. (TheCaleb says: October 30, 2010 at 5:42 am)
Correction: Eastern Settlement was the bigger and more southern Viking site in Greenland, not the more northern and smaller site.
Here’s an interesting list of Norse stuff found in Eskimo camps, dating back to the WMP. The stuff includes chain mail, and was found way up on Ellesmere Island.
http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic33-3-454.pdf
henrythethird says:
October 30, 2010 at 9:51 pm
Thanks for that link I’ll share with a colleague next week and see what his reaction is!
Sandy S
From Wikipedia:
“…The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) or Medieval Climate Optimum was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region, that may also have been related to other climate events around the world during that time, including in China, New Zealand, and other countries lasting from about AD 950–1250…”
Seems strange that the range of the Norse artifacts found on Ellesmere Island (1250-1350 AD) show they survived for about 100 years or so after the end of the MWP.
RE:henrythethird says:
October 31, 2010 at 2:03 pm
“Seems strange that the range of the Norse artifacts found on Ellesmere Island (1250-1350 AD) show they survived for about 100 years or so after the end of the MWP.”
Just because Europe lost interest in Greenland, and stopped sending ships, does not mean that the Greenlanders lost interest in themselves. We have no Icelandic Sagas, nor tax-reports from Scandanavian kings nor thithe-reports from the Catholic church, that tell us what happened to the population, however we can learn a little by looking at graves, and the ruins of old Norse and Inuit houses.
The farmers who stubbornly clung to their farms shrank, due to their poor diet, until the average man was less than five feet tall. Where the older bodies in graves rotted, the most recent bodies were preserved by the growing cold. It got so cold that even the Inuit abandoned their settlements in Eastern Greenland, but even those ruins hold Norse items.
It is usual to dismiss the Greenlanders as a people who just died off, however this does not seem likely to me, due my knowledge of human nature. I think they moved south.
Besides the Greenland farmers, the Greenland population held quite a collection of sea-faring men. Even the Icelandic Sagas mention a trading craft, a “knarr” larger than most, called a “Vinlandsknarr.” There is nothing dramatic about trading, so the Sagas make no big deal about it, however it happened. Perhaps the only sign of we have of these sea-faring men is what we see when we try to figure out the sex-ratio of the Greenland population. It seems there were likely five men for every three women.
During the period 1350-1450 walrus ivory was replaced by elephant ivory in Europe, as trade with Africa increased. A fine cloth produced in Greenland was replaced by cloth from England, (and also the wool-producing sheep in Greenland may have died due to the cold.) So what was left to trade? The next big item was cod.
When John Cabot sailed in 1498 his crew consisted of some who had sailed the route before. Apparently Europeans had been sailing to the Grand Banks for cod for some time. How long? Those fellows didn’t write.
The cod-fishermen likely stopped in Newfoundland for water, and perhaps even to dry their fish. It would be interesting to locate the sites where they stopped, and sift the sand. It would not surprise me at all if the lowest levels contained Norse items.
It also would not surprise me if there was no real break in the trans-Atlantic trade between 1350 and 1500. It may not have been written about, by the tax and tithe collectors, but it likely was talked about in taverns.
Maybe it was talked about in the taverns of Italy. After all, both Christopher Columbus and John Cabot were Italian.
The Sagas were indeed Icelandic.
Other early writings about Greenland include “The King’s Mirror” known by its old Norse title “Konungs Skuggsja” from the first half of the 13th century which described dairying as one of the chief industries of Greenland. Another important document was the sailing directions carried by Henry Hudson from “A Treatise of Ivar Bardarson a Greenlander…” written about the middle of the 14th century. It gave sailing directions from Norway to Iceland to SW Greenland.
What I meant was the scientists seem to want to shorten the MWP, even though there is evidence of northern settlements hundreds of years after the “end”.
I just found out an hour ago that naked mole rats have the greatest longevity of any rodent. Whereas most rodents have 2-4% CO2 in their burrows, (50 to 100 times atmosphere), naked mole rats have more, about 6%.
The body’s main stimulus to breathe is buildup of CO2 in the blood. When it is too easy to release that CO2 (very low atmospheric concentration), you don’t breathe as much and don’t get enough oxygen. Anoxia is the primary cause of cancer (1935 Nobel Prize). So one would expect fewer cancers with more CO2. Naked mole rats get NO cancers and they do not seem to age at all.
Maybe the ideal CO2 concentration is even higher than I thought.
I have yet to see any health of terrestrial vertebrates in varied CO@ur momisugly concentrations.
Meantime–CO2 is not just good for plants–it is good for animals, and you as well.