From CSIRO and “increased CO2 has benefits” department:
![High_Resolution[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/high_resolution1.png?quality=75)
In findings based on satellite observations, CSIRO, in collaboration with the Australian National University (ANU), found that this CO2 fertilisation correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa, according to CSIRO research scientist, Dr Randall Donohue.
“In Australia, our native vegetation is superbly adapted to surviving in arid environments and it consequently uses water very efficiently,” Dr Donohue said. “Australian vegetation seems quite sensitive to CO2 fertilisation.
The fertilisation effect occurs where elevated CO2 enables a leaf during photosynthesis, the process by which green plants convert sunlight into sugar, to extract more carbon from the air or lose less water to the air, or both.
This, along with the vast extents of arid landscapes, means Australia featured prominently in our results.”
“While a CO2 effect on foliage response has long been speculated, until now it has been difficult to demonstrate,” according to Dr Donohue.
“Our work was able to tease-out the CO2 fertilisation effect by using mathematical modelling together with satellite data adjusted to take out the observed effects of other influences such as precipitation, air temperature, the amount of light, and land-use changes.”
The fertilisation effect occurs where elevated CO2 enables a leaf during photosynthesis, the process by which green plants convert sunlight into sugar, to extract more carbon from the air or lose less water to the air, or both.
If elevated CO2 causes the water use of individual leaves to drop, plants in arid environments will respond by increasing their total numbers of leaves. These changes in leaf cover can be detected by satellite, particularly in deserts and savannas where the cover is less complete than in wet locations, according to Dr Donohue.
“On the face of it, elevated CO2 boosting the foliage in dry country is good news and could assist forestry and agriculture in such areas; however there will be secondary effects that are likely to influence water availability, the carbon cycle, fire regimes and biodiversity, for example,” Dr Donohue said.
“Ongoing research is required if we are to fully comprehend the potential extent and severity of such secondary effects.”
This study was published in the US Geophysical Research Letters journal and was funded by CSIRO’s Sustainable Agriculture Flagship, Water for a Healthy Country Flagship, the Australian Research Council and Land & Water Australia.
climatologist,
On more recent time scales, temperature came first. T even leads CO2 on a scale of hundreds of millennia.
CO2: the biosphere is starved of it. We need more CO2. More is better.
sergei
“So an small increase in a trace gas can affect the vegitation – but the same increase can absolutely not have affect the climate!!.
Very strange, truly a magical gas.”
Your sarcasm missed the fact that we humans only produce 3% of the Greening CO2, Mother Nature provides the rest……
Hmmmmm
Trenberth and his mates are busy wringing their hands, casting about, fishing for any explanation for the missing heat! But heat is energy, energy that photosynthesis uses when producing record crop yields and a greening planet! Think of the work done an acre to lift the water, stems, trunks and leaves of crops, woodland and forest from below the surface to the height of maize, soft fruits and jungle canopy. And then multiply that by millions of acres…
A quick search provided not one reference to a paper estimating the extra work done and therefore energy required to explain such an obvious, massive increase in global vegetation…
Trenberth’s energy budget diagram doesn’t mention ‘green’ energy consumption, could it just be that the missing ‘heat’ can be explained by the increase in vegetation, for how else do plants grow?
Below is the above study I believe and some other recent paper abstracts on co2 fertilization.
sergeiMK says:
July 8, 2013 at 10:00 am
—-
Who said CO2 has no impact on the climate? Nobody here.
The point is that CO2 has very little impact on the climate.
BTW, if CO2 weren’t a greenhouse gas, then yes, it could affect plants without affecting the climate.
Please learn to think before you post.
““Ongoing research is required if we are to fully comprehend the potential extent and severity of such secondary effects THAT OUR MODELS HAVE INDICATED EXIST.”
There…fixed it for ya.
Global farm production is worth on the order of 3 trillion dollars annually. Assuming that it’s not just the arid lands but all lands that have benefitted from the increased CO2, that’s a net social benefit from CO2 of $300 billion dollars per year.
Now, global carbon emissions are on the order of 10 billion tonnes per year these days. This means that the social benefit of carbon emissions is about $30 per tonne …
Somehow, when Obama declared his “social cost of carbon” figures, I doubt if he included that benefit …
w.
“…however there will be secondary effects that are likely to influence water availability, the carbon cycle, fire regimes and biodiversity, for example,” Dr Donohue said.
Darn those pesky “secondary effects”. I guess they just had to throw those in, though. They just can’t help themselves. Tough for them to kick the “CO2 is eeevil” mantra.
It’s worse than we thought, we must act now.
Oh…and
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GIVE US MORE MONEY!
There…that oughta do it.
Jim
Chad B. says:
July 8, 2013 at 10:58 am
“Dirk,
The sections that are grey are still plantless. Check them out on google maps. ”
Google maps updates photos of small German cities at most every 5 years. Why should they EVER update photos of the Sahara? I got a better idea, you go to google images and enter something like “green Sahara”. You will find photos of plants somewhere in the Sahara. Granted, these are isolated spots where wells are or rare rainfalls happened. But be that as it may – these plants should profit the most from rising CO2 as they are water-limited and can form less stomata when CO2 is higher. And – I would expect the border from the Sahel to the Sahara to shift. I would expect plants to conquer previously desert territory.
What happened to Sergei? Is a hit and run all they have?
So my failures in the gardening department are despite a surplus of plant steroids.
I’d better go back to making comments on WUWT than!
Auto
Dusters says: “…remarking that the beetles, while a problem, were really a symptom of the intense competition for water, which weakened trees… …that fire suppression was the direct cause of the overpopulation that drew the beetle problems and directly caused the “drought” that was killing trees.” I had the privilege to take a nature walk in the Lubrecht Experimental Forest with a Professor from the U of MT, Missoula who was knowledgable in this area. We saw Beetles and magnificiant Ponderosa Pines. He mentioned that some thought is being given to letting Fire solve the Beetle problem under the right conditions. For example, a brush fire that doesn’t jump to the forest crown. Ocassional small fires keeps the brush load small enough so that fires cannot make the jump to the Ponderosa forest crown. The Ponderosa Pine has evolved to survive small fires just fine. Some do think that high levels of fire suppression have had a negative effect on Ponderosa Pines, increasing the chances of more severe forest crown level fires.
Looks suspiciously like unacceptable NEGATIVE FEEDBACK to me. Excommunication is clearly looming for Dr Donohue and his fellow apostates.
Does anyone have an idea what the effect on water vapour would be?
It looks like water vapour has been flat / declining?, contrary to what the climate models assume.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/new-paper-weather-and-climate-analyses-using-improved-global-water-vapor-observations-by-vonder-haar-et-al-2012/
Old’N “Looks suspiciously like unacceptable NEGATIVE FEEDBACK to me.”
-No need to worry because vegetation is mostly darker than soil so (other things being equal, which of course they aren’t) someone could claim that the lower albedo vegetation could lead to more warming ie positive feedback, which coupled to all the other positive feedbacks that get published means that earth should explode in a ball of flames , yesterday 😉
That map must be interpreted carefully. For instance, areas south from Sahara are in general “almost desert” with very little vegetation so even large relative increase (30%) does not mean very large total increase in biomass.
I would really like to see also a map describing absolute biomass amount changes.
To Kurt in Switzerland (9.28 comment):
Yes, of course this is bad news! How ignorant can you get???
Anything that is adapted to the precise level of aridity, and the precise plant community of two decades ago, may be facing extinction! You thoughtless Swiss, Nature can’t possibly be so resilient as to tolerate vegetation growing a bit better and saving a little more water!!
I thought you might be sensitive to our planet, but now I see that you are an ignoramus whose lack of understanding will mean that you will be implicitly implicated when climate disaster strikes the earth! Oooooh, I can’t stand this pain any longer, living on the same planet with people like you!!
How diabolical that the country fighting CO2 the most is having the most benefit.
Gaia worshipers are going to be doubly upset at CO2 when they find out it might be helping to fulfill a Bible prophesy: “…and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” – Isaiah 35:1
RockyRoad says:
July 8, 2013 at 12:39 pm
“How diabolical that the country fighting CO2 the most is having the most benefit.”
Are you Australian? Well in that case, we appreciate that you fell for Kyoto, but as a German I’d like to insist that we’re getting ripped off even more (by our own government whose only talent is to out-green the Greens).
Kashua, I’ve read that parts of the Sahel (strip immediately south of the Sahara) were nothing but sand with nary a blade of grass half a century ago are now verdant grazeland. That’s not a very quantified difference, admittedly.
And what is worse.. the green vegetation might lead to more water being excavated causing more clouds and more precipitation and oh no …. more green vegetation… aaaaah.
Of course this extra vegetation is bad because it is anthropogenic.
Just as less vegetation is bad (desertification) because that is caused by humans.
…In fact the Christian religion’s arcadian vision of a garden of eden has a lot to answer for.
Yes, we are piloting spaceship earth but we now have too many nagging back seat drivers.
We should stop the car and tell these mother in law types to get out.