From the National Science Foundation:
New Models Predict Dramatically Greener Arctic in the Coming Decades
International Polar Year- (IPY) funded research predicts boom in trees, shrubs, will lead to net increase in climate warming
A map of predicted greening of the Arctic as compared with observed distribution Credit and Larger Version
Rising temperatures will lead to a massive “greening” of the Arctic by mid-century, as a result of marked increases in plant cover, according to research supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of its International Polar Year (IPY) portfolio.
The greening not only will have effects on plant life, the researchers noted, but also on the wildlife that depends on vegetation for cover. The greening could also have a multiplier effect on warming, as dark vegetation absorbs more solar radiation than ice, which reflects sunlight.
In a paper published March 31 in Nature Climate Change, scientists reveal new models projecting that wooded areas in the Arctic could increase by as much as 50 percent over the coming decades. The researchers also show that this dramatic greening will accelerate climate warming at a rate greater than previously expected.
“Such widespread redistribution of Arctic vegetation would have impacts that reverberate through the global ecosystem,” said Richard Pearson, lead author on the paper and a research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation.
In addition to Pearson, the research team includes other scientists from the museum, as well as from AT&T Labs-Research, Woods Hole Research Center, Colgate and Cornell universities, and the University of York.
The research was funded by two related, collaborative NSF IPY grants, one made to the museum and one to the Woods Hole Research Center.
IPY was a two-year, global campaign of research in the Arctic and Antarctic that fielded scientists from more than 60 nations in the period 2007-2009. The IPY lasted two years to insure a full year of observations at both poles, where extreme cold and darkness preclude research for much of the year. NSF was the lead U.S. government agency for IPY.
Although the IPY fieldwork has been largely accomplished “in addition to the intensive field efforts undertaken during the IPY, projects such as this one work to understand IPY and other data in a longer-term context, broadening the impact of any given data set,” said Hedy Edmonds, Arctic Natural Sciences program director in the Division of Polar Programs of NSF’s Geosciences Directorate.
Plant growth in Arctic ecosystems has increased over the past few decades, a trend that coincides with increases in temperatures, which are rising at about twice the global rate.
The research team used climate scenarios for the 2050s to explore how the greening trend is likely to continue in the future. The scientists developed models that statistically predict the types of plants that could grow under certain temperatures and precipitation. Although it comes with some uncertainty, this type of modeling is a robust way to study the Arctic because the harsh climate limits the range of plants that can grow, making this system simpler to model compared to other regions, such as the tropics.
The models reveal the potential for massive redistribution of vegetation across the Arctic under future climate, with about half of all vegetation switching to a different class and a massive increase in tree cover. What might this look like? In Siberia, for instance, trees could grow hundreds of miles north of the present tree line.
These impacts would extend far beyond the Arctic region, according to Pearson.
For example, some species of birds migrate from lower latitudes seasonally, and rely on finding particular polar habitats, such as open space for ground-nesting.
The computer modeling for the project was supported by a separate NSF grant to Cornell by the Division of Computer and Network Systems in NSF’s Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering, as part of the directorate’s Expeditions in Computing program.
“The Expeditions grant has enabled us to develop sophisticated probabilistic models that can scale up to continent-wide vegetation prediction and provide associated uncertainty estimates. This is a great example of the transformative research happening within the new field of Computational Sustainability,” said Carla P. Gomes, principal investigator at Cornell.
In addition to the first-order impacts of changes in vegetation, the researchers investigated the multiple climate-change feedbacks that greening would produce.
They found that a phenomenon called the albedo effect, based on the reflectivity of the Earth’s surface, would have the greatest impact on the Arctic’s climate. When the sun hits snow, most of the radiation is reflected back to space. But when it hits an area that’s “dark,” or covered in trees or shrubs, more sunlight is absorbed in the area and temperature increases. This has a positive feedback to climate warming: the more vegetation there is, the more warming will occur.
“By incorporating observed relationships between plants and albedo, we show that vegetation distribution shifts will result in an overall positive feedback to climate that is likely to cause greater warming than has previously been predicted,” said co-author and NSF grantee Scott Goetz, of the Woods Hole Research Center.
-NSF-
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Brian said @ur momisugly April 10, 2013 at 9:41 pm
You certainly should have; it’s much clearer. I note that most of the snark usually comes in the first few comments and the more substantive comments later — sometimes quite a lot later.
Upthread you said:
Unfortunately, what tends to happen in such places is that one’s comments either never see the light of day, or they are edited to misrepresent what one said. YMMV of course. For those of us that are actually interested in understanding climate, this is a very rewarding place to hang out. The amount of snark is minimal compared to some places I’ve visited over the years.
Hey, ho… There I was enjoying my posts appearing immediately and now find myself being moderated again. Sorry for the extra work mods… Maybe we need a list of triggers so we can save you some effort.
Brian,
I hope you read this in the morning. A lot of the conclusions that we reach, on this site, are, unfortunately, based on the extracts and articles we read here. It would be really nice if we could get the studies without having paywalls so we could get unfiltered studies, but we have to deal with what we get. I try to give a critical examination of what I read when I respond to an article so that others can form an unbiased opinion – but I concede my own bias leaks through. I have learned through the years – I started in the mid-1990’s – that the internet is a goldmine of information. That information, like mining, has to be smelted in order to retrieve the nuggets of information that are worth it. Being skeptical is the best way to approach it – even if the information agrees with your preconceived notions, question its accuracy. Be flexible, and willing to change your mind, but base it on real, factual, information, not rumours and supposition.
I’m beginning to sound preachy – I am definitely not an expert on these subjects, but I’m intrinsically suspicious of people who believe, with a religious fervour, that they are right. Remember the basic warning of fraud – if it’s too true to be real, it isn’t.
The conclusions of this study are as ass-backwards as it is possible to get. A classic case of twisting a study result of an observation to an AGW story when the real conclusion is the total opposite.
The Arctic is greening because the Arctic is a part of planet earth and as Matt Ridley has explained, earth is greening due to increased CO2.
In the past half century the earth has warmed and CO2 has increased, both of these contribute to Arctic greening.
The effect of vegetation on earth’s climate is a COOLING effect. The evolution and spread of plants especially trees on land changed earth from arid and hot to verdant and cooler. This is because of turning of dry weathered silicates into soil, retention of water in soils, and transpiration of water vapour from soil to atmosphere. Also vegetative cover has less albedo than the arid equivalent.
Greening of the Arctic will not positively feedback planet warming (all the AGW positive feedback stories are illiterate imbecilic nonsense) but the precise opposite – it will apply a cooling, negative feedback.
Does this mean that my tomato crops in the UK will now flourish again? Because all this warming so far has not had much effect on my veg plot. I am now looking forward to a barbeque summer. I live in hope of seeing the sun.
Models huh?
And we hear little about the Arctic ice level build towards last winter nor the total cover over the winter. Am I to infer from this that ice cover is back to ”normal”? Not worthy of a mention with no alarmism to report.
Good morning Michael,
I agree with your approach toward these articles. And I like that Anthony posts articles like this one without including his own commentary. That’s something that most blogs can’t say. Your statement “I’m instrinsically suspicious of people who believe, with religious fervour, that they are right” is why I posted here though. There are many such commenters here that exhibit the same behavior (like phlogistion’s comment “all the AGW positive feedback stories are illiterate imbecilic nonsense”). To make those kind of statements without even reading the report is not prudent. The Pompous Git, I think you overlook the snark here because it doesn’t conflict with your viewpoint. You’re right that generally the further down I read, the more substantive the comments are, though still with little opposition.
You bring up an interesting and contentious point about deaths. It’s a point that both sides argue. Personally, I’m not convinced of either. Any deaths at all are the result of policy makers rather than scientists; even then they are indirectly responsible. I suppose you could make the connection between any policy decision and people dying. Furthermore, if innocent deaths was a main concern around here, there are much more immediate causes of that than climate policy. More time should be spent learning about conflict in the Caucasus and subsaharan Africa. I think the climate issue is more popular because it is polarizing. There’s no one to yell at in the more important issues. Still, I would be interested to learn about how you believe climate science is causing death.
johnmarshall, I don’t think you will find even an alarmist who thinks ice won’t regrow in the winter. Winter sea ice extent isn’t really a major part of the CAGW hypothesis.
Brian:
I write to ask a clarification of one of your assertions which puzzles me.
In your post at April 11, 2013 at 6:44 am you say
Really?
Then perhaps you could explain why summer sea ice extent is such a concern to warmunists?
Or do you think only summer Arctic ice loss rates – and not Arctic winter ice gain rates – inform about the CAGW hypothesis? Do these rates not both affect maximum summer Arctic ice?
Also, as part of your explanation I would appreciate your telling me why sea ice loss in the Arctic is “a major part of the CAGW hypothesis” but sea ice gain in the Antarctic is not. The projections of temperature change in the first IPCC Report were for major – and similar – temperature rises in both polar regions, and I know of no reasons for these projections to have been changed.
Richard
Richard, I will answer your questions to the best of my knowledge, but you would be better off finding out for yourself.
Summer ice minimums are more significant because of the albedo effect and ocean circulation. Essentially, open ocean absorbs more heat from sunlight. In winter, there is no sunlight anyway. In fact, open ocean would lose more heat in the winter due to radiation.
The loss rates and gain rates will usually be the same for any given year. When a lower minimum is reached, the ice will regrow back to its typical winter area, though the ice will be thinner and more transparent in areas where it had melted. So the winter growth rate doesn’t really matter at all. The rate that concerns the CAGW crowd is the rate at which the ice extent minimum is declining from year-to-year, and even moreso the rate of ice volume decline.
Also, I believe that Arctic ice is more of a concern because it affects ocean currents and the jet stream, thus affecting climate in the region where most people live. Antarctica is mostly cut off from the west of the world by a strong circulating current that surrounds it, keeping heat out. So ice there is expected to remain more-or-less constant over the medium term. Since the water in the world’s oceans flow through the Arctic and heat exchange occurs there, it is more significant.
Again, I am just attempting to convey the implications of ice in the CAGW theory to the best of my knowledge. I’m not an expert though.
Brian:
Thankyou for your attempt to clarify the issue and your honesty in admitting you cannot adequately explain the contradictions..
That, of course, is the problem with CAGW. Everything which is asserted to be “a major part of the CAGW hypothesis” is confounded by contradictions which are apparent to anyone who looks into the assertion.
For example, in this case, as you say
.
Yes. In fact the Arctic is a net emitter of radiation (the tropics are a net absorber of radiation and the oceans transport the net absorbed heat polewards from the tropics).
Hence, it is NOT apparent and, indeed, is unlikely that as you say
.
No! Ocean circulation winter ice formation could be expected to have greater effect on summer ice formation than summer ice loss. This is because the ice loss
(a) increases albedo to reduce the absorbtion by the ocean of radiation in the summer
but
(b) reduces inhibition to radiative emission from the ocean throughout the year
and
(c) radiative absorbtion by the ocean is LESS than the radiative emission from the ocean.
Simply, you said
Brian and all others:
I apologise for my formatting error in my recent post.
Richard
Brian:
I truly am sorry. I made a real mess of that answer to you. In addition to the formatting error I wrote ” This is because the ice loss” when I intended ” This is because the ice”.
I really am sorry that I had this ‘senior momemt’.
Richard
Richard, it’s clear that you were just setting up a strawman so that you could attack it with your opinions, not because you wanted an answer. This is the kind of rhetoric I wish would disappear. If you want to argue these points, go argue them with someone who knows them.
Some of your points are confusing to me, however. You say that ice loss increases albedo. I don’t know enough to disprove that, but it’s certainly not a popular position. Can you point me to a study that supports you?
You also say that ice loss increases radiative emission throughout the year, which is true, but you don’t relate it to radiative absorption. The CAGW point is that there is greater net absorption through the year. So the Arctic can still be a net emitter of radiation, with the CHANGE in net radiation emissions declining due to ice loss.
Also, could you explain this sentence: “Ocean circulation winter ice formation could be expected to have greater effect on summer ice formation than summer ice loss.” I’m not sure what you are trying to say there.
Richard, thanks for the clarification. You can ignore my second paragraph.
Brian:
At April 11, 2013 at 9:09 am you say to me
NO! I never set up straw men. Never, not ever.
You made a statement without caveat as though it had merit.
I challenged you to justify it. That is NOT a straw man.
My purposes were clear and are two-fold.
Firstly, to make clear to you that if you make assertions (as most of your posts do) then it would be good if you were to accompany the assertions with some explanation (be it logic, argument, link and/or reference) because you rarely do that. Your existing practice is misleading to onlookers.
Secondly, to demonstrate that you should check statements before asserting them as though they had merit. Indeed, your reply to me said I should check it for myself! I will verify your assertions, but you are making the assertions so it is your responsibility to provide at least some substantiation for them.
You ask me to clarify
“Ocean circulation winter ice formation could be expected to have greater effect on summer ice formation than summer ice loss.”
Simply,
1.
how much ice cover occurs over Arctic ocean in a summer
2.
is affected more by the combination of ocean circulation (transporting heat from the tropics as I explained) and the amount of ice growth in the previous winter (inhibiting radiative heat loss from the ocean as I explained)
3.
than it is affected by an amount summer ice cover over the ocean in the previous summer.
Hence, maximum Arctic winter ice cover is at least as good an indicator of global climate change as maximum Arctic summer ice cover.
Richard
Richard, the only assertion I made is that winter ice cover is not a main piece of the CAGW argument. Then you asked a few questions about CAGW that you already knew the answer to, so that you could rebut me as if they are my own opinions. They were not inquisitive questions, they were purely rhetorical. That is a characteristic of a strawman.
I have used plenty of logic to back up my assertions, most of which are based upon the well-known psychological effect called “confirmation bias”. You can read about it on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
I’m not sure why you are so upset about me saying to find out yourself. This is something that everyone should do, and from a variety of different sources. I wouldn’t want you to take my word for anything climate related, as I am not an expert in the field.
On to the issue of arctic ice, I’m not sure how you come to your conclusion based on your three points. Your points seem to say that summer ice cover is influenced by ocean circulation and winter ice (which is basically constant). So you seem to agree that the loss of summer ice in recent years is due to heat from the tropics, which could possibly be interpreted as climate change. I’m not seeing the connection between winter ice and climate change that you propose.
Brian:
Please try to read what I wrote. You are failing to understand I was being helpful because you are trying to convince yourself that you are right.
Making dubious statements that you can be ‘called on’ does not help your credibility.
And you end up flailing as you are now doing.
If you want to make a statement you cannot justify then pose it as a question and not as a statement.
That is all I am saying. Either you have understood the need to substantiate statements or you have not. And if you have heard me then that can only help you.
As to winter ice being constant that can only mean the freezing rate varies if summer ice is varying. Please think what that implies. But this subject of sea ice is really off-topic and – as I have now repeatedly explained – it was merely an example to make the point about unsubstantiated assertions.
Richard
PS A ‘straw man’ is a false argument posed to be knocked down in pretence that this defeats the real argument which is not addressed. Asking someone to justify a statement is not ‘straw man’.
Brian said @ur momisugly April 11, 2013 at 6:40 am
Brian, how do you know what my viewpoint is? Has it occurred to you that given the rather limited amount of time I am able to devote to this place that I concentrate rather on the kind of response I made to Roger Knights above than paying attention to snark?
Apropos phlogiston’s comment, it is substantially correct. For example, the prime positive feedback in the climate system is supposedly water vapour. There is no empirical evidence for the predicted increase in water vapour caused by the increase in anthropogenic CO2. See Trends in middle- and upper-level tropospheric humidity from NCEP reanalysis data by Garth Paltridge, Albert Arking, Michael Pook:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00704-009-0117-x#page-1
Richard, you are being very vague. What are my dubious statements? In what way am I flailing? What statement have I not justified?
I’m not sure what you mean by “freezing rate”. Ice doesn’t form or melt at a constant rate. Winter ice covers nearly the same area each winter regardless of the summer minimum. I have asserted that the CAGW crowd doesn’t really care about winter ice. You asked me to explain why, which I attempted to. But now I will simply back up my claim. First, I was unable to even find an article about winter ice. I did, however, find an article about winter snow cover, which they don’t care about for the same reason:
“Flanner et al. also show that the radiative forcing from snow cover in the winter months is relatively small, whereas the cooling effect is largest in the spring and summer months (March through July in the NH). This is because in winter, the days are shorter and the sunlight weaker, so albedo has less impact. This again confirms that if we want to evaluate the impact of changing snow cover on the climate, we should be looking at the spring and summer months, not the winter, as Monckton does. Flanner et al. find that the change in snow radiative forcing in the spring and summer months has been significantly positive (less cooling) from 1979 to 2008.”
http://skepticalscience.com/record-snow-cover.htm
Asking for justification was not your strawman. It was questions like this one that you already knew the answer to: “Then perhaps you could explain why summer sea ice extent is such a concern to warmunists?” You knew why, you just didn’t agree with it.
The Pompous Git, I made an assumption about your views. It may be a false one. It seems you agree with me that you overlook the snark.
Your criticism of positive feedback is an appropriate one that does not exhibit religious fervor. I appreciate those kind of comments. I wasn’t referring to the substance of phlogiston’s comment, but rather using it as an example of “religious fervour” that Michael finds on other sites.
The Pompous Git, I just read over the abstract of the paper you referenced concerning vapor feedbacks. Here is the key sentence that I think you may have misinterpreted:
“Negative trends in q as found in the NCEP data would imply that long-term water vapor feedback is negative—that it would reduce rather than amplify the response of the climate system to external forcing such as that from increasing atmospheric CO2.”
Notice the word “would” in there. They are describing what negative q implies, but that was not their exclusive finding. q is humidity. Earlier in the abstract, it states that q is significantly positive below the top of the convective boundary layer, and negative above it. I don’t know enough atmospheric physics to infer the implications of that, but it doesn’t sound to me that they are flat out disproving water vapor as a positive feedback, rather describing its differences at varying altitudes.
Water vapor undeniably increases the greenhouse effect. CO2 models depend on increased water vapor to explain the warming during the 80’s and 90’s. However the big question is what causes changes in atmospheric water vapor?
CO2 advocates argue CO2 warming induces more evaporation and hence more water vapor. Yet even Trenberth acknowledges that El Ninos pump most of the water vapor into the atmosphere. (read Trenberth, K, et al., (2005) Trends and variability in column-integrated atmospheric water vapor. Climate Dynamics, vol. 24, p. 741 758) Given the impact of El Ninos, one would then expect the Pacific Decadal Oscillation to mirror water vapor content which indeed it has. During the positive PDO which encourages more El Ninos water vapor increased. Since 1999 as the PDO has switched to a negative phase and the frequency of El Nino decreased, so has water vapor (read Vonder Haar,T., et al., (2012) Weather and Climate Analyses Using the New NVAP-Measures Global Water Vapor Dataset. Weather and climate analyses using improved global water vapor observations. Geophysical Research Letters, 39, L15802, doi:10.1029/2012GL052094.)
The trends in water vapor support an interpretation of natural cycles driven by El Ninos and the PDO and contradict the CO2 interpretation which suggest an increase in water vapor.
Brian said @ur momisugly April 11, 2013 at 2:36 pm
If, as you seem to be implying here, the Paltridge et al paper is supportive of the “warmunist” claims, why the “warmunists” expended so much effort to suppress its publication. Disclaimer here: I know Mike Pook (he’s a neighbour) and Anthony Watts introduced Garth to me when he was in Tasmania. I’m with Mike on this; I just want to understand climate better.
No, I’m not saying the paper supports either conclusion. I get the sense that they are trying to better understand the feedback effects of water vapor by looking at how it varies at different altitudes.