From the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies where if you can get past the headline, this is notable: “We found that global climate models omit factors critical to understanding forest response, such as hydrology, soil conditions, and plant-animal interactions.” Point though: one experimental tree forest does not a GCM factor make.
Maple syrup, moose, and the local impacts of climate change
Understanding warming requires long term studies that account for real-life complexity
Millbrook, N.Y. — In the northern hardwood forest, climate change is poised to reduce the viability of the maple syrup industry, spread wildlife diseases and tree pests, and change timber resources. And, according to a new BioScience paper just released by twenty-one scientists, without long-term studies at the local scale—we will be ill-prepared to predict and manage these effects.
Following an exhaustive review of more than fifty years of long term data on environmental conditions at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the paper’s authors arrived at a sobering conclusion: current climate change models don’t account for real life surprises that take place in forests.
Lead author Dr. Peter Groffman, a microbial ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, comments, “Climate change plays out on a stage that is influenced by land-use patterns and ecosystem dynamics. We found that global climate models omit factors critical to understanding forest response, such as hydrology, soil conditions, and plant-animal interactions.”
One thing is clear: at Hubbard Brook Forest spring is advancing and fall is retreating. Over the past half century, the climate has warmed and there has been a rise in rainfall and a decrease in snowfall. Winters are getting shorter and milder, with snowpack melting some two weeks earlier. But soil thaw is no longer tightly coupled with spring plant growth, creating a transitional period that results in the loss of important soil nutrients.
In the absence of insulating snow pack, exposed soils are more susceptible to freezing, which damages tree roots. Sugar maples are suffering a one-two punch: soil frost is linked to tree mortality and warmer winters reduce sap yield. Mild winters are also encouraging the spread of pests and pathogens, including the destructive hemlock woolly adelgid—which was once held in check by cold winter temperatures.
As snow depth decreases, deer are better able to forage in the forest. Their browsing damages young trees and spreads a parasite that is lethal to moose. Reduced snow pack is also a challenge for logging operations, which use snow-packed roads to move trees, and ski resorts, which already rely heavily on manmade snow.
Groffman concludes, “Managing the forests of the future will require moving beyond climate models based on temperature and precipitation, and embracing coordinated long-term studies that account for real-world complexities.” Adding, “These studies can be scaled up, to give a more accurate big picture of climate change challenges—while also providing more realistic approaches for tackling problems at the regional scale.”
Paper Title: Long-Term Integrated Studies Show Complex and Surprising Effects of Climate Change in the Northern Hardwood Forest
Authors: Peter M. Groffman, Lindsey E. Rustad, Pamela H. Templer, John L. Campbell, Lynn M. Christenson, Nina K. Lany, Anne M. Socci, Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur, Paul G. Schaberg, Geoffrey F. Wilson, Charles T. Driscoll, Timothy J. Fahey, Melany C. Fisk, Christine L. Goodale, Mark B. Green, Steven P. Hamburg, Chris E. Johnson, Myron J. Mitchell, Jennifer L. Morse, Linda H. Pardo, and Nicholas L. Rodenhouse
Bioscience paper: http://www.aibs.org/bioscience-press-releases/121116_indirect_effects_of_climate_change_could_alter_landscapes.html.
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We see the same pap inserted in official reports to and by the various state environmental agencies and groups paid to produce this trash throughtout the country. In the TVA coverage area we are following developments in the endlessly fascinating Chervon v Ecuador case. Stratus Consulting one of the perps in the Chevron RICO case have transferred millions from our pockets to theirs by participating in shakedowns of the hapless TVA. In response to Climategate our then Congressman Bart Gordon responded “we need more research”
OK, so at least this time it’s not aerosols as the fudge factor.
And here I thought Yamal resolved all these issues a long time ago–once and for all!
(Do these people not talk to Mikey?)
To be cited as “proof” global warming will lead to increased deaths, although climate change isn’t mentioned (at least in this report of the work) and it’s just a regional grouping of trends:
People who live in tropics more likely to die seven years earlier
People living in the tropics are likely to die more than seven years younger than those in other regions, according to the first findings of a new global research project.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/9688146/People-who-live-in-tropics-more-likely-to-die-seven-years-earlier.html
“We found that global climate models omit factors critical to understanding forest response”
Of course they get everything else right though….. lol.
I hope all these dire predictions turn into delirious enthusiasm when it becomes apparent that the world is now cooling, not warming, and is likely to do so for a couple of decades or more. All the terrible predictions emanating from the prospect of global warming will disappear in a proverbial puff of smoke and we can all be relaxed and happy again.
Oh, wait, what were they saying back in the 70s the last time it was cooling?
What happened to the maple trees in the winters of the 1880s? Were all these cold years ones with lots of snow or were they just cold? Claiming ‘Climate Change’ and not taking history into account is omitting scientific research to push a case. Real data beats models, too.
So many unsustantiated assumptions, I don’t know where to start. Ric Werme has more hard data in his home office than those 21 authors used for their ramblings.
Heres a quick one:
“As snow depth decreases, deer are better able to forage in the forest. Their browsing damages young trees”
From a ten second Google:
“Despite the species being greatly reduced in the US by the 1940s because of unregulated hunting and predator abundance, white-tailed deer numbers have increased significantly and populations are thriving”
Is there more deer foraging damage because it was previously limited by snowpack, or just more deer period?
Within the actual paper there is this:
The climate of the HBEF has changed over the last half
century. At the four weather stations with the longest
records (43–52 years), the average annual air temperature
has increased by 0.17°C–0.29°C per decade, with more
marked warming in winter than in summer (Campbell et al.
2007, Hamburg et al. 2012). These local trends in air temperature
are characteristic of the region and are expected
to continue into the future, with projected increases of
2.1°C–5.3°C by 2100 (Hayhoe et al. 2007, Huntington et al.
2009).
There are many interesting ideas in this paper. I wonder if their forest has continued to warm over the last 15 years? The projected temperature for 2100 (up by 2.1°C–5.3°C) [They mean C. degrees, not degrees C.], fits at the lower value if the regional trend continues. A big IF. But it looks like they segued to a “CO2 climate model” for that ∆5.3.
“one experimental tree forest does not a GCM factor make”
BUT
one experimental tree a Hockey Stick makes.
“..according to a new BioScience paper just released by twenty-one scientists, without long-term studies at the local scale—we will be ill-prepared to predict and manage these effects..”
I think 21 scientists are looking to continue their easy jobs into the future. After their crap report they deserve a sacking!
“…the paper’s authors arrived at a sobering conclusion: current climate change models don’t account for real life surprises that take place in forests.”
Then just imagine how sobered up they’d be if they knew the true scale of what climate change models don’t account for. Given the prospect of financial withdrawal, there’d probably be 21 more cases of the “D.T.s”!
Yet another moronic pronouncement from the AGW acolytes!
A reasonable conclusion, especially the idea that climate models lack skill for application. As Tim Palmer, a leading climate modeler at the European Centre for Medium – Range Weather Forecasts in Reading England said, “I don’t want to undermine the IPCC, but the forecasts, especially for regional climate change, are immensely uncertain.” The complexity of the model required is much more than the authors allow as was discovered the last time the Maple tree drew attention. The grid size and lack of data points seriously limits and often negates any such study. I know having been involved in many studies, one about causes of a massive failure of tree seedlings in reforestation. There the model used was based on mature trees, but seedlings, especially in a large exposed area, are affected by very different conditions and factors.
Another was about Maple trees. A great deal of research was done about Maple trees when acid rain was falsely accused of causing a decline in syrup yields. The primary causes were shown to be related to early spring warmth followed by a hard frost or drought both of which caused “die back”. This means loss of first growth leaves. Leaves regrow but fewer and smaller thus reducing sap flow. A similar effect is caused with various forms of insect infestation but particularly the Tent caterpillars.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060524/NEWS/605240351
This adjustment is critical to these types of climate studies because plants have remarkable “catch-up” abilities as they always drive to reach seed production. Similar factors were discovered with other studies, for example effects on delayed season by increasing snow cover by cloud seeding to increase runoff in Colorado. All this flies in the face of the incorrect assumption that plants can’t or won’t adjust to warming or climate change. Obviously there are limits, but the range a types of adjustments are quite remarkable.
Time, don’t you think, to start banging the skeptical drum regarding what we’re going to miss as global cooling continues. Thinks like Canadian wheat, corn, wild rice, quinoa, wine grapes… well, pretty much anything grown in Canada. Same in South America’s lower latitudes. Africa is going to starve, but nothing new there. Too busy buying up bombs and rockets to worry overmuch about the rank and file.
Norway and Finland will suffer significantly – does anyone remember the century of freeze that nearly wiped out the Sami people?
Bad stuff coming – I hope governments hang on to some of that absurd cap and trade wealth to help pick up the heating bill for the circumpolar nations.
“Professor Lyon A. Borehole, is currently communicating URGENT climatological findings to his assistant, who’s just asked a Pertinant Question: Let’s listen in –
“Hay.
Wat.
How yew no wichwun uh thim bore holes is KaluhBraytid?
Caws this’n’s uhWun Ima borin boy, now git bak! Git Bakck! ”
“….Back to you, Bill..”
Doug says:
November 20, 2012 at 9:19 pm
I half read, half skimmed the paper and am surprised by it’s wealth of speculation and lack of hard data.
Folks at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest do some really good work, and have some decades-long studies going on, but I get the sense that this paper was the result of a class project.
With all those authors, I get the sense that people tried to focus on individual aspects, but wound up losing sight of the overall conclusions. Way too many people for one paper!
My home data focuses on snow depth around New England measured by weather observers interested in the subject. One of the things that comes through loud and clear is that snowfall and snow depth are absolutely horrid things to use to look for climate change. I only have about 13 years, see http://wermenh.com/sdd/index.html for the starting point. Some years my data at home tracked Derry, about 30 miles away, well. In other years I’d get much more than them. In a couple years, Rhode Island got more as the storm track was south enough to bring them snow instead of rain, and bring my nothing.
Even 60 years of data at one site likely will present challenges in looking for trends. I sort of like their looking at snow melt dates. Data from Mt Mansfield in Vermont show very quick snow melt late in the season, and complete snow melt occurs about the same time with some neighboring year.
However, consider this:
Sure, albedo drops when the snow melts, but before then, as snow changes to the granular “corn snow,” albedo drops in the transition and more as it thins. Until the snow all melts, it keeps the ground temperature at near freezing. Once the snow gone then there’s nothing to counter radiational heating or warm air advection. I remember one day in March in Plymouth NH (about 20 miles south of HBEF) when we lost 6″ of snow in one sunny and warm (80°F) day, then 5″ a few days later. Any newly exposed ground that day warmed up quickly! Also, if you’ve heard the phrase “snow eating fog,” I think that has cause and effect switched. if the air mass has a dew point above freezing, then water condenses on the snow, melting it quickly. Also, water vapor that doesn’t form dew forms fog. If the dewpoint is below freezing, then condensation doesn’t occur and snow doesn’t melt much that day, especially if it’s cloudy.
On April 1st in Penacook in the ridiculously snowy 2007/2008 winter, snowpack dropped 4 inches from 17″ that morning, it was all gone by the 11th. The high sun, long days, and bare trees make it tough to keep snow in April. BTW, an aside – November is usually our cloudiest month. This year I frequently commented in October about how much it looked like November. This month is shaping up to be one of the sunniest Novembers on record, I’m sure. Extreme weather!
Finally, on the sticky subject of maple syrup, there are at least couple confounding issues. One is that while the oldtimers report significant changes over many years, changes in handling the sap run probably have had some influence. Also, in any given season, I’ve come to expect that some area in New England will have a great season, but others will have a lousy season. It’s often hard to predict. Great seasons typically have clear skies with cold mornings around freezing and afternoons in the 40s and 50s. If some clouds move in for a few days and temperatures stay above freezing for the duration, that can really hurt the “harvest.”
John F. Hultquist says:
November 20, 2012 at 9:22 pm
I think the data would be too noisy to tell. We have enough trouble looking at global temperature changes in data sets with thousands of stations, data from just four are going to be very noisy and a big challenge to find a trend.
Mods – my last comment seems to have been captured by the WP spam troll.
Time to introduce a new logical fallacy, methinks:
“Appeal to Funding”…..”without long-term studies at the local scale—we will be ill-prepared to predict and manage these effects.”
You decide that there MIGHT be a problem with the New England Sugar Bush….while ignoring the obvious fact that the darn thing has already survived exhumation from under a kilometer of ice, or warming on a grand scale. And oh-no, you will be unable to predict something, let alone something inherently unpredictable, you idiots!
I simply applied the Eschenbach Test to this paper. Quality of papar is inversely related to the number of co-authors.
How did the maple forests ever survive the Medieval Warm period?
Oh well, not to worry too much as the world is supposed to end next month on Dec. 21st [I think that is the latest prediction].
You know, some of these same alarms were expressed in the 1930s. Google up 1930s forests and 1930s forest fires and you can see what I mean.
A lot of forest in North America had been cut down by the 1920-1930s to build out railroad, houses, cities and towns. Remind you of anything? Like…. when the Mayans perished in the drought. Because they cut down all their trees to heat mortar.
So the Dust Bowl probably has a big relationship with the early 1930’s deforestation. Looking at the videos and maps of the tree cutting.
I read the entire article.
Four points:
1. “Could” was the most frequently used word.
2. The area in question was extensively logged in the 1930s, so the forest was observed during a period when the trees were unusually young.
3. This is clearly a paper trying to demonstrate that its authors have some use in the great scheme of things and therefore need some more grant funding.
4. Conclusions are based on GIGO computer models predicting linear trends far into the future.
Science has become politicised. Sensible, competent (but perhaps not highly moral) scientists, who want a reasonable living followed by a comfortable retirement, know that CAGW / climate change is the magical, cash-attracting formula. I don’t know that I really blame them.
So long as grants are awarded on the whims of politically constituted/influenced/motivated allocatory bodies this scenario is unlikely to improve. Science in the service of the state. Publish or perish. Too bad about pure research: exploring unknowns, chasing possibilities, frequent honest failure and the occasional elusive success. Give the funding committees what they want and have a career. Screw the science!
The real alternative is simply to give universities all of their funding to spend at their discretion. If scientists are not sufficiently trustworthy to make responsible choices in this regard, why should they be expected to give honest results when chasing money? You could probably save a few bucks on bloated administrative systems, too.
Rant over.
ut’s all part of the build-up to the UN climate talks in Doha later this month, expect more:
21 Nov: Australian: AFP: Temperature targets unlikely to be met, UN World Meteorological Organisation says
Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the single most important man-made contributor to climate change – rose to 390.9 parts per million in 2011, which is 2.0 ppm higher than in 2010, the WMO said…
“Even if we were able to stop them tomorrow, these greenhouse gases will continue to have an effect for centuries,” Mr Jarraud said at the launch of the annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin report in Geneva.
CO2 levels are at 140 per cent of the pre-industrial level before 1750, Mr Jarraud said. According to the WMO, about 375 billion tonnes of carbon have been released into the atmosphere as CO2 in the past 260 years.
“These billions of tonnes of additional carbon dioxide in our atmosphere will remain there for centuries, causing our planet to warm further and impacting on all aspects of life on earth,” Mr Jarraud said in a statement.
“Future emissions will only compound the situation,” he said.
Taking the long view on data to smooth out year-on-year anomalies, the WMO showed that while carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased on average 1.5 ppm during the 1990s, the average annual hike from 2000 to 2010 stood at 2.0 ppm.
“So it’s not just increasing, it’s increasing exponentially,” WMO scientific officer Oksana Tarasova told reporters…
Mr Jarraud, meanwhile, pointed out that so-called “carbon sinks”, including oceans, have until now absorbed nearly half of the CO2 emitted by humans, but stressed that “this will not necessarily continue in the future.”
Five major gases account for 96 per cent of the warming of our climate, according to the WMO, which released its annual greenhouse gas report ahead of a new round of UN climate talks in Doha later this month.…BLAH BLAH BLAH
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/temperature-targets-unlikely-to-be-met-un-world-meteorological-organisation-says/story-e6frg8y6-1226520961626
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