The precision, down to a tenth of a meter, calculated by the University of Grenada in their press release below is simply stunning. I wonder what the error bars are on 2.7 meters over seven years of the study? And, how does one filter out seasonal weather effects over such a short time span? Inquiring minds want to know.
Here’s the main points:
- Vascular plants have moved 2.7 m upwards, which might lead to the extinction of high-mountain species.
- While species diversity in summits of temperate-boreal regions has increased, it has declined in Mediterranean regions.
- Such are the results obtained from a study published in Science, where University of Granada researchers participated.
Researchers at the University of Granada Department of Botanic have participated in an international study that has confirmed that global warming is causing plants to migrate to higher altitudes. The study –recently published in Science– analyzed species diversity shifts in 66 summits of 17 European ranges between 2001 and 2008.
In the Iberian Peninsula, two target regions were selected in the Pyrenees (Ordesa) and Sierra Nevada (Granada). Researchers found that the species under study had migrated an average of 2.7m upwards. “This finding confirms the hypothesis that a rise in temperatures drives Alpine flora to migrate upwards. As a result, rival species are threatened by competitors, which are migrating to higher altitudes. These changes pose a threat to high-mountain ecosystems in the long and medium term” the authors state.
Boreal-Temperate and Mediterranean Summits
The study also reveals an average increase of 8% in the number of species growing in summits of European mountains. However, such increase is not general, as of the 66 peaks in boreal and temperate areas, the majority revealed an increase in species diversity, while 8 out of the 14 summits in the Mediterranean area revealed a decline in the number of species represented.
Furthermore, the study revealed that species diversity has changed more significantly at low elevation sites –at the upper limit of the forest or an equivalent altitude– in the Mediterranean region than in other regions.
In Mediterranean mountains (Sierra Nevada, Corsica, Central Apennines and Crete), the rise in temperatures is causing a decline in annual average rainfall, which results in longer summer droughts. Consequently, temperature rise and droughts pose a threat to unique endemic species.
The mountains that present the most significant shifts in species diversity are Mediterranean mountains –located in Southern Europe–, where climate is different to that of the rest of Europe. In general, moist-soil species are more vulnerable to climate change, though high-mountain endemic species are also affected.”For example, in Sierra Nevada, the observation plots revealed a decrease in the number of emblematic species such as Androsacevitalianasubsp. Nevadensis and Plantagonivalisy Artemisia granatensis”, the University of Granada professor, Joaquín Molero Mesa, explains.
Another Sampling Site
Sierra Nevada has very special characteristics, as it is the only mountain range in the Iberian Peninsula that has Mediterranean climate from top to the hill foot. Consequently, the research group coordinated by professor Molero Mesa –with the special collaboration of Mª Rosa Fernández Calzado– placed another sampling site (four summits located at an elevation above 2500m high) in 2005. The purpose was to increase the sample size and obtain more reliable results. In two years, a comparative study of the results obtained in the first and second study will be conducted.
Thus, Sierra Nevada is the only mountain range with two target regions under observation. The research group is coordinated with the Observatorio de Cambio Global de Sierra Nevada, and has established –in collaboration with a research group from Morocco– another target region in the high Western Atlas, where observation plots and thermometers will be installed next summer. The purpose of this action is to better understand climate and species variations in the most vulnerable environment: the Mediterranean region.
This study is part of the Project GLORIA (The Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments) initiated in Europe in 2000 and which has spread worldwide.
Recent Plant Diversity Changes on Europe’s Mountain Peaks. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1219033
=================================================
I often wonder if the act of studying these plants doesn’t account for some of the changes, such as tracking seeds around in the mud on your shoes, etc.
The plant in the photo with the press release, Androsace vitaliana turns out it is easy to grow in your garden. So it follows that I’m not too worried about this news.
Those poor species will be scurrying back down the mountain as temperatures decline in coming years!
This is outrageous. Something must be done immediately to stop this altitudinal violation of mother nature.
I just tried to validate the paper by performing a simple experiment. I squirted a bit of CO2 onto one of my roses and it ran straight up the fence and is sitting on the garage roof and it wont come down
So in the minds of the AGW advocates, azs one plant moves up the mountain, nothing but rock and stone will be left in its wake? Is it possible, that other plants will back fill and new ecosystems will be created..just as always happens in nature. Why is it these people think that the climate should never and has never before changed, and ecosystems are static and never changes? Maybe they should realize that about 90% of all plant/animal life which has existed, is now extinct.
“Vascular plants have moved 2.7 m upwards, which might lead to the extinction of high-mountain species.”
Possible Solutions:
1) add 2.7 m to the top of the mountain.
2) relocate the species to mountains further to the North.
3) transplant the species to refrigerated greenhouses. (run by windmills)
4) plant the species on the polar ice caps where the ice is melting.
/sarc/
EternalOptimist says:
Very good.
What’s the difference between a climate scientist and a hippy?
Lot’s of money.
Maybe CAGW is making birds fly 2.7m higher too since often those seeds are transported and spread by birds pooping them everywhere…
In the mean time, the mountains in our area never had so much snow cover for quite some time.
They must have rounded off. The report I saw shows 2.6940486860436363 Meters. [/snark]
( I’d really love to find their observation areas and sneak in week by week and replant the area slowly to a higher and higher altitude, then “suddenly” show the plants meters in the other direction one day when we had a couple of cool days of weather. ha ha)
“Vascular plants have moved 2.7 m upwards, which might lead to the extinction of high-mountain species.”
Yeah, and these high-mountain species were unable to move up these 2.7 m? If it is due to “global warming” then the temperature line for these high-mountain species would have gone also up for 2.7 m.
Perhaps the climate will stay mild for awhile and the plants will actually be able to climb back up to the still-extent tree remains left from the Holocene Climatic Optimum 4-6K years ago. The acclaimed and prolific [SNIP: I can’t tell if you were being ironic or not. Let’s not use that term. -REP] Craig Idso did considerable work documenting these higher timberlines from the HCO in the US.
“robmcn says:
What’s the difference between a climate scientist and a hippy?
Lot’s of money.”
YOU REALLY GOT THE POINT !
Oh noes! Cold weather in the 70’s caused Europe’s Mountain Plants to migrate downwards…science discovers they are recovering………
These studies remind of the parallels between econometrics and these dolts. Some countries figure their inflation indices to 3 decimals points, as if that meant anything. Meanwhile the ‘science’ behind the indices is so ridiculous as to make climate ‘science’ seem sound, as there’s no non arbitrary way to construct the measures to begin with. But still, people flip out over a .1 to .001 move this way or that in the stats. Makes you wonder about the sanity of most of the population, and if they’ve ever wondered or questioned what the hell that ‘change’ means in practical real world terms.
“Oh no, inflation went up .01% this quarter!”
“You do realize that the way they measure it is not only completely arbitrary, but the basket of goods and their nature and weights assigned to them have changed God knows how many times since the creation of the index?”
“But it’s UP .01%! I’m buying all the gold in the world!”.
Ok…I’m confused. Everything I’ve read says that we’ve been cooling for about 10-15yrs. Is it possible they went up the mountain in search of more sunlight/warmth? /snark off
Jim
I am stunned. Clearly this field of science has no academic foundations.
With the bankruptcy of Europe, hopefully these clowns find a more meaningful occupation. Waiting tables is not an unworthy occupation.
I know tree lines are mostly the result of cold temperatures, but lack of water plays a role as well.
As CO2 increases plants will need less water – and can thus grow at higher altitudes.
This study is buried in 2.7 meters of… uh… assumptions.
And of course, the stated connection to “global warming” wouldn’t have anything to do with funding.
I have seen this effect in my garden (UK), I now plant my tomatoes 2.7M (+/- 0.1M) higher in hanging baskets, rather than on the ground and they grow better
“androsace vitaliana” … genus should be capitalized!
This wasn`t published on April 1st by any chance ?
Here are yet more examples of extreme climate change: Between December & February in the Northern Hemisphere, the trees are bare, the skies often grey, the weather often cold & or wet. However, between March & May, the trees & plants show signs of rapid & unprecedented growth & leaf formation, the skies tend to be a little brighter & temperatures a tad warmer, more natural daylight is observed, more insects can be detected, birds tend to show great activity during daylight hours, more bird species are often observed. During the following three months of June, July, & August, the weather tends to be quite warm & sunny (UK excepted due to Wet Office forecasting or lack thereof), longer days & shorter nights, the trees display complete leaf formation, wildlife appear to show a bustling of activity! As a result of this dramatic period of warming, the foul stench of burning carbon often fills the air, especially at the weekends in the afternoons, but it has at times been observed in the evenings either in the week or at weekends. This causes odd behaviour in human beings, when they seem to consume copious amounts of strange fermented liquids, this makes them at times happy, amused at the smallest of things, (especially when one of them falls over or loses the motor function between brain & mouth, but it is understood that this is a temporary condition only & wears off after a few hours), they may become loud & noisy, & often, eventually drowsey. Some may even become as drowsey as a fart! It is believed that this is a direct result of the burnt carbon in the local atmosphere although there was uncertainty in this. (As a note of further uncertainty, the researchers had observed that the atmosphere is made up of a multitude of variations here & there, for instance Harry’s Wine Bar was alleged to have had a “Convivial Atmosphere all year round”, although this has yet to be confirmed by further research!) Then very slowly, during the months of September through to November the trees start to display a heavy weight of leaf, gradually turning amazing golds, reds, oranges, purples, the leaves then die & fall to the ground, bird/insect activity declines, some birds even fly off to the Southern Hemishpere, day light hours reduce dramatically, temperatures generally get lower. Then it goes back to the way it all started by December! Apparently it has been observed that similar things seem to happen in the Southern Hemisphere but the other way around. Experts say there is no natural explanation for this kind of activity, it is unprecedented! Therefore it must be Climate Change on an unimaginable scale. Experts have also observed dramatic rises in Sea Level that were equally unprecedented, four times a day the sea level rises & falls at varying rates of ebb & flow! None of this has apparently happened ever before, c1900, honest, it is unprecedented! Sarc Off! 🙂
DirkH says:
April 25, 2012 at 9:39 am
With the bankruptcy of Europe, hopefully these clowns find a more meaningful occupation. Waiting tables is not an unworthy occupation.
Especially now that there is 2.732517 m more space for cafes and bistros, vacated by the plants that moved on. Maybe this is the tipping point for the green economy….
Oh brother.
Last month we heard WUWT calling Nature a junk journal; this month’s flavor is Science. Talk about “shoot the messenger”.
Okay, someone will do it, might as well be me… “Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?”
“…Plants of this genus are sometimes known as rock jasmines or fairy candelabras and are widely cultivated by horticulturists for their dense cushions covered in white or pink flowers. There are about 110 species…”
And of the 110 species of Androsace, I guess it was only the Androsace vitaliana that migrated.
Also, this wasn’t the first time they studied the migration of Androsace vitaliana – apparently, they’ve been on the move for some time:
Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2009 Nov;53(2):580-91. Epub 2009 Jul 19.
Bayesian hypothesis testing supports long-distance Pleistocene migrations in a European high mountain plant (Androsace vitaliana, Primulaceae).
Yes, Pleistocene migrations. The Pleistocene has been dated from 2.6588 million (±5,000) to 12,000 years before present. These plants do have a post-glacial history.
And yet 2.7m in seven years is considered a large journey for them.
Any group can cherry-pick local data, but for the big picture:
Global warming has been more arctic warming and upper northern latitude warming than truly much global (as one may see in graphs at climate4you.com for instance). Accordingly, it actually mainly beneficially warms places which were unfavorably cold for plant life beforehand. The same occurred during prior earlier warm periods like the Holocene Climate Optimum, warmer than now, where fossil evidence shows tens of percent more vegetation biomass than now in high northern latitudes (examples in studies listed at co2science.org and googleable), a major net increase to vegetation … which the polar bears survived fine.
Add to that the major beneficial effect of CO2 increase on plant growth and water usage efficiency (less stomatal conductance and accompanying transpirational water losses needed for a given amount of CO2 intake if CO2 concentration gets closer to what it was when ancestors of our plants originally evolved). Overall precipitation actually increases, from the surface of the oceans warming slightly, causing more water to evaporate from them and fall back down to become fresh water in circulation.
Of course, in scenarios like if a second Maunder Minimum occurs and reaches substantial effect in a decade or so, for substantial cooling, global warming in general could not apply. But global warming was of overall net benefit to plants when it lasted.
nuclearcannoli says:
April 25, 2012 at 9:35 am
“These studies remind of the parallels between econometrics and these dolts.”
Gotta defend econometry here. One of its applications is the search for possible causations and the exclusion of improbable ones. Google Granger causality. Very interesting.
I’m sure they did not use a ruler but most likely a barometer or a GPS. It is quite certain they can’t have a 0.1m precision on their measurements. This most have been done by a first year undergrad that just wrote down all the numbers on the instrument’s screen and did not know anything about error calculations.
EternalOptimist says:
April 25, 2012 at 9:15 am
Hilarious!
Has anyone captured one of these migrating plants on video? I won’t beleive it till they do!
Regardless of what you write, if it is climate-related, you get it published.
Are there just too many “science” magazines and not enough science?
This is a very serious problem and well worth the expenditure of billions of dollars to prevent it getting any worse!
You really couldn’t make this stuff up!
Global Warming has driven Europe’s Mountain Plants to Migrate 2.7 m Upwards in 7 Years
It was not clear to me if this was the vertical height or the distance along the slope of the mountain.
However they were very specific about the cause “Global Warming” and the time “7 years”. There is one problem with this. Over the last 7 years, the globe has cooled.
See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2005/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2005/trend
(slope = -0.0113452 per year)
Mitigation: move the existing species being invaded up! Probably seeds from the plants below have been moved up on the boots of invading ecologists.
So they know for sure that before this the plants have not been there before?
I’m cheering for the edelweiss.
I wonder if those are just very new mutations of plants since they could never have survived the MWP.
@ Dirk,
Already spent nearly 4 years studying the subject. To be blunt, econometry is BS because you can’t mathametize human choices and actions, nor can you assign objective extensive measures to a system based on subjective intesive valuations, and where there are no constant relationships between the factors. WRT inflation measures as an example, there is no non arbitrary answer to questions: what goods and services do you include in the basket?; what increments of each?; what weight do you assign to each?; how do you account for changes in quality over time?; how do you account for changes in value over time? Say you include a TV, a TV now vs a TV in 1950 are two different animals, and competing in two different markets with different options open to consumers. Families in the 50s likely had one box if any, whereas now people generally have two or more. The ‘metric’ itself is basically meaningless. Between econometrics and astrology, I’ll take astrology. At least the stars and planets move in predictable patterns governed by contant, objectively quantifiable laws. I’ve no doubt Michael Mann is big fan of econometrics though.
Is 2.7m statistically significant?
OT. Wind power a big loser for German company, Siemens.
http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/news_business/2012-04-25/Siemens-Wind-Project-Generates-Losses.html#video_section
The old surveyor in me wonders what sort of instruments they used to gather their elevation data. I would presume it was some sort of GPS system and their are indeed many such instruments available that can deliver tenth of a meter resolution. However most of those would be problematic both in terms of expense (they tend to be quite spendy) and methods ( though several orders of magnitude less cumbersome than old style instruments they wouldn’t be a lot of fun on a day spent wandering over mountain sides trying to identify plant species). There are handheld devices built for GIS applications which would probably be useful, but even the best of those are barely good for sub meter resolution and then only if you are able to tie in to base reference stations to provide differential corrections and BTW they’ll still set you back $3K- $5K a piece.
Given the level of sophistication displayed in the PR I have my doubts but I’ll have to wait and see. I’m not too hopeful because a continuing aspect of all of this flood of PR “science” is a blissful ignorance of even the basic principles of Metrology
The increased partial pressure of CO2 couldn’t be relevant here, could it? My understanding of the “krummholz” and tree line was at least partially based on CO2 partial pressure. Certainly doubling of O2 partial pressure would make summiting Everest a *tad* easier…
For example http://naca.larc.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20120000642&qs=N%3D4294966526%2B4294956360
” Observed apical and radial growth increment increases were correlated with CO2 concentration (r = 0.83-0.87), summer temperatures (r = 0.55-0.64), and “cold period” (i.e. September-May) air temperatures (r = 0.36-0.37). ”
r ~ .85 for the winning correlation!
Upwards ? Do they mean northwards ?
This article originally appeared in “The Onion”, right?
DirkH says:
April 25, 2012 at 9:39 am
Actually, it sounds like positions will be opening up in coal mining in Germany and Poland in the very near future. Perhaps they could study the behavioral difference in canaries for each meter of depth they go in the mine.
The more I look at it the more I conclude the field of climate science is just rife with budget-saving opportunities.
When discussion the ‘elevation’ of terrain and plants thereupon,
please eschew calling it ‘altitude’, which is for things in the air such as clouds.
The press release tells you nothing about their methods. Guess we’ll have to wait for the full paper to be published…
Meanwhile…
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
The 2012 Arctic Sea Ice Extent is now kissing the “long term” 1979 – 2000 average. Oh Noes!! Another ice age is upon us! (heh)
It’s amazing how these alpine type plants do so well in the back garden, even at sea level.
http://www.agreengarden.com/plants/androsace-mathildae.asp
“alpine : Plant which needs at least a few hours a day of solar light.
The Androsace mathildae is surely a rustic plant, it’s possible to grow it in the garden year round.”
I cannot even fathom how a plant is sensitive enough to the air temperature difference that is 2.7 meters away from it… you have to be kidding me…
Plants can tolerate a wide temperature spread even during the course of 24 hours.
This implied lack of tolerance is hard to believe. Nature is highly resilient to changes.
2.7 meters… how many degrees of temperature is that exactly.?
The comments here are golden.
No, platinum. 🙂
I’m pretty sure that plate tectonics is causing the Himalaya to be pushed higher. Will very slow climate change be able to keep up with rising mountains? Even if plants range higher maybe they’ll still be farther from the summit. Sarc.
Looking at the web site it looks like they like a lot of field trips around the wrold, great work if you can get it and all you have to do is believe, truely believe……….even though when you think about it Billions of year old planet and you can work out plants more 2.7m in 7 years, think i’ll wait for the DvD.
2.7m is 7 years? At that rate, the plants will reach the summit in what? 5000 years?
Another utterly useless study with a completely absurd conclusion, this hardy/half hardy annual (rockery plant) prefers plenty of drainage and locates in the wild accordingly, and as you know rocks and the drainage on mountain peaks are constantly changing and being reorganized due to erosion etc..
Androsace L. (syn. Douglasia, Vitaliana) – rock jasmine.
They Disliking dry or wet heavy soils, it does best in full sun, set in buried stones and free sandy loam mixed with pebbles and heath soil. Runners and seeds. Alps, Pyrenees and Sierras of Spain.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/-blHGq9DjcTg/TU72_7cTQ8I/AAAAAAAAFz4/w4d3pJXpOIg/Androsace%252520vitaliana-Rizzoni-100624-04.jpg
http://lh5.ggpht.com/-92hflwBK-7o/TUsJMlefPgI/AAAAAAAAFcM/Ji0wUJFARXY/Androsace%252520vitaliana-ColRod-100622-02.jpg
Fifty years ago I lived in Philadelphia at an elevation of 120 feet, now, due to a need for a change of climate, I live in Colorado at 8950 feet at the same latitude. So, thanks to climate change, my habitat has been driven (in a 1966 Plymouth) upwards 8830 feet in 50 years. That’s 2.7 km – Kilometers, not meters! At that rate in another 50 years my habitat will be driven higher than any point in Colorado and beyond the range of the Plymouth. At that point, to avoid extinction, my options will be reduced to:
1. move to the Hindu Kush or Tienshan mountains.
2. live in a stratospheric balloon
3. skip off to a beach in Costa Rica and not worry about it
Perhaps I should get a grant from NSF’s Office of Climate Research Anaslysis Programs (OoCRAP) to study this further.
They would do well to study the Pinsapo tree. It only exists in mountain areas of Morocco and Southern Spain, that signifies that the two populations were once united down at sea level during an ice-age, and have since retreated to become isolated in mountainous areas. A tremendous ordeal for the species but still they survive.
This research seems to be a prime candidate for an Ignobel Award.
Researchers at the University of Junk Science confirmed that professor Joaquín Molero Mesa is an idiot.
Gary Pearse beat me to it. Does anybody suppose that seeds caught in the boots of ascending researchers could have an effect? It’s happenning in Antarctica. They do not consider this. Nor do they consider the effect of rising CO2 in extending the range of plants.
Do they have temperature data for these mountainsides for at least 30 years?
Of course increasing global temperatures are causing these regional changes. Of course there is no mention of regional changes in temperature in the press release. I am sure, like those magical studies of tree rings, the plant migration could have nothing to do with precipitation, ambient RH, increasing CO2, no, only global warming. You can be sure the error bars squash their little 2.7m signal, too. They would have been better off if they had changed their units to mm, that would seem more impressive.
Oh noes! Global Warming has driven Europe’s Mountain Plants to Migrate 2.7 m Upwards in 7 Years
As long as their roots remain in contact with the ground, I don’t see a problem…
If I noticed that dandelions had spread 8 feet farther into my lawn, I wouldn’t think of temperature; I’d think of wind and bees.
“Plants to Migrate 2.7 m Upwards in 7 Years”
Thank Goodness!
For a while there I thought they might be overcome by the rising oceans.
I can’t help but wonder what the temperature difference is between two points on a mountain side separated by only 9 feet.
Also: Their website map showed some activity in this part of the US. I followed the links to see if there was anything worth checking/debunking, but there isn’t. The supposed activity and measurement didn’t exist. The American part of the website shows one meeting in 2005, with some plans to do activities later, but nothing happened after that. (Or if it did happen, it didn’t get written up after 2005.)
Reading this certainly makes me feel better. Having read on WUWT a number of really stupid studies with ridiculous BS global warming conclusions published by researchers from American universities, I was beginning to believe the U.S. universities were giving away advanced degrees to any idiot that came along. This study shows that the U.S. is not alone in doing so.
I wonder if these plants were around in Roman times. If they were, where did they migrate to as the glacier line was often above the mountain?
http://climateaudit.org/2006/08/07/green-alps-1/
tonyb
Anthony: There is a typo in the opening sentence, “Grenada” -> “Granada”.
But what about mountains at higher latitudes that now present a new location for this species that it didn’t have at the cooler temperatures? More warmth and more CO2 = more plant life on earth.
marchesarosa do they have good plant location data for the last thirty years , the new presence of a plant now does not mean it could not have been there in the past and they gone only to return .
A reminder that the AGW scare research bucket is still deep and well filled and that there are of plenty of researches happy to dip into it.
One hallmark of the death of AGW will be that you will still get these studies but the links to ‘climate doom’ will be gone and actual consideration of what has happened will be done .
Have these species “moved” up to where they are now found near the entrances of ancient mines that have been recently uncovered by retreating glaciers, those mines complete with left-behind mining tools?
Move all the weather stations up 2.7m and we have got rid of global warming! Move them up 3m and we have global cooling!
Not funny Anthony, this is an obvious spoof.
Even by CAGW standards this is ridiculous.
It’s worse than we thought. I have determined the centroid of the dandelion population in my back yard has moved 1.39329953 feet to a higher elevation as well. OMG !
Skeptikal says:
April 25, 2012 at 10:29 am
Is 2.7m statistically significant?
The Spanish Sierra Nevada, not to be confused with the range in California, averages 11,411 feet in altitude. So, 2.7 meters is a movement of about 0.08 per cent.
Ray says:
April 25, 2012 at 10:00 am
I’m sure they did not use a ruler but most likely a barometer or a GPS. It is quite certain they can’t have a 0.1m precision on their measurements.
A barometer? – sooo last century.
How to achieve better than 0.1m accuracy in surveying:
http://www.geod.nrcan.gc.ca/edu/rtk_e.php
– not at all difficult this century.
So with a dry lapse rate of about 1 deg C per 100 meters over seven years this study implies a warming of 2.7/100/7*100=0.39 deg C per century of warming. I won’t bother to calculate the climate sensitivity from this but it will be very small.
Max says:
April 25, 2012 at 2:04 pm
…
polistra says:
April 25, 2012 at 12:14 pm
…
RE: dandelions;
I have noticed a lot of dandelions in the garden this year, don’t you know if you pick one you will wet the bed?, (we called them ‘wet the beds’ as kids) If there are so many about this time of year, Aren’t the odds higher than usual of someone picking one and wetting the bed?
On the other hand maybe we can use reports of people wetting the bed as a proxy for global temperature.
lol @ it must be worse than we thought!!!
It is known that increased CO2 makes plants more tolerant of hot and cold temperatures. Thus, CO2 alone can account for these plants moving upward.
Global warming was blamed for flowers in the UK blooming two weeks earlier compared to 20 years ago. However, the UK temperatures records do not support much warming at all. CO2 increases alone again account for this change in plant behavior.
Increased CO2 also makes plants more efficient with water, due to having fewer stomata and thus less transpiration, and nutrients. There is no down side with CO2.
Well, it’s not working for my @#$% LAWN!!!!
nuclearcannoli says:
April 25, 2012 at 10:18 am
@ Dirk,
Already spent nearly 4 years studying the subject. To be blunt, econometry is BS because you can’t mathametize human choices and actions, nor can you assign objective extensive measures to a system based on subjective intesive valuations, and where there are no constant relationships between the factors. WRT inflation measures as an example, there is no non arbitrary answer to questions: what goods and services do you include in the basket?; what increments of each?; what weight do you assign to each?; how do you account for changes in quality over time?; how do you account for changes in value over time? Say you include a TV, a TV now vs a TV in 1950 are two different animals, and competing in two different markets with different options open to consumers. Families in the 50s likely had one box if any, whereas now people generally have two or more. The ‘metric’ itself is basically meaningless. Between econometrics and astrology, I’ll take astrology. At least the stars and planets move in predictable patterns governed by contant, objectively quantifiable laws. I’ve no doubt Michael Mann is big fan of econometrics though.
————————————————
I have no economic or higher math background. IMO the only fair way to measure inflation is to tie it to federal government spending. So, whatever the percentage in increased fed spending for the year would be the inflation for the year. Isn’t that what inflation is, Government inflating money through spending? Adding more paper. Nothing else makes sense to me.
Oh no … migrating plants … The Day of the Triffids is upon us !!!
Maybe Day of The Triffids wasn’t fiction after all …
Brian R says:
April 25, 2012 at 12:20 pm
I can’t help but wonder what the temperature difference is between two points on a mountain side separated by only 9 feet.
Using the dry adiabatic lapse rate, taking the prevailing wind, the slope and composition of the intervening terrain into consideration, and carrying the calculations out to four decimal places — nothing.
Billy Liar says:
April 25, 2012 at 2:52 pm
A barometer? – sooo last century.
How to achieve better than 0.1m accuracy in surveying:
http://www.geod.nrcan.gc.ca/edu/rtk_e.php
– not at all difficult this century.
You can’t beat a hosepipe full of water with a soda bottle on each end and a ruler!.
have we finally reached Peak Stupid?
I’m guessing you see no irony in the writing of that comment while you yourself shoot the very messenger that all eco-kooks like to shoot at – WUWT. How very ironic. (~snicker~).
Besides, Nature really is junk, as is Science and Scientific American.
The plants walked uphill 2.7 meters? Next thing you know, they’ll be singing, Feed me Seymour!