WUWT readers may recall this WUWT story from 2011: The Earth’s biosphere is booming, data suggests that CO2 is the cause, part 2
Now there is even more evidence. From From Technische Universität München: Study highlights forest growth trends from 1870 to the present- Global change: Trees continue to grow at a faster rate
“…scientists are putting the growth acceleration down to rising temperatures and the extended growing season. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen are other factors contributing to the faster growth.”
17.09.2014, Research news
Trees have been growing significantly faster since the 1960s. The typical development phases of trees and stands have barely changed, but they have accelerated – by as much as 70 percent. This was the outcome of a study carried out by scientists from Technische Universität München (TUM) based on long-term data from experimental forest plots that have been continuously observed since 1870. Their findings were published recently in Nature Communications.
Three decades ago, “forest dieback” was a hot topic, with the very survival of large forest ecosystems seemingly in doubt. But instead of a collapse, the latest studies indicate that forests have actually been growing at a faster rate. Whether, how and why forest stands have changed their growth patterns over the last century are still hotly disputed questions.
This latest study provides some answers. It was based on data from experimental forest plots that have been observed systematically since 1870. This makes them among the oldest forest study sites in the world. The forested areas are also representative of the typical climate and environmental conditions found in Central Europe. “Our findings are based on a unique data pool,” maintains Prof. Hans Pretzsch from TUM’s Chair for Forest Growth and Yield, who headed up the study.
Accelerated growth
In the cases of spruce and beech, respectively the dominant species of coniferous and deciduous trees in Central Europe, the TUM scientists noted significantly accelerated tree growth. Beech trees exhibited a growth rate that was 77 percent faster than in 1960, while the figure for spruce was 32 percent faster. The stand volume growth for beech was 30 percent, and 10 percent for spruce. “The stands as a whole had a lower growth rate than the individual trees essentially because larger trees require more space, hence each stand will have fewer trees,” explains Pretzsch.
The scientists are putting the growth acceleration down to rising temperatures and the extended growing season. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen are other factors contributing to the faster growth. The concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere have been rising steadily over the last century. “Interestingly, we observed that acid rain only had a temporary slowing effect on the growth of our experimental plots. Indeed, the input of pollutants started to fall off significantly from the 1970s,” says Pretzsch. “It is true though that only a few of our experimental areas are located in the ridges of the highland mountains where the greatest damage was observed.”
Change requires adaptation
While the trees both grow and age faster, the appearance of the forest does not change as a result. But the same tree and stand sizes are achieved significantly earlier than in the past. This could benefit the forestry industry in that target diameters and the optimal harvest rotation age will be reached sooner. Besides, more wood can be harvested without compromising the principle of sustainability.
At the same time, the altered timescale has not yet been incorporated into traditional forestry yield models, which monitor growth merely as a function of age. The risk here is that the newly discovered benefits will not be exploited. Meanwhile, the accelerated growth and ageing of trees is also significant for the forest ecosystem as a whole, as Pretzsch explains: “The plant and animal species that will be most affected are those living in habitats which depend on special phases and structures of forest development. These species may have to become more mobile to survive.”
Long-term observation provides unique pool of data
The study was based on 600,000 individual tree surveys conducted since 1870. Over such a long timescale, it was possible to determine from the growth of the trees how they responded to changing environmental conditions. Pretzsch adds: “Even though the experimental areas varied in terms of climate and soil conditions, we were still able to discern an overall trend of faster growth.”
But it is not just the experimental plots and the long observation period that make the data so interesting. “We did not observe the trees in isolation, but rather always in interaction with their neighbors. This helped us understand how the dynamics of individual trees influence the stand as a whole. The growth trends at stand level are relevant for the forestry industry in terms of productivity, carbon sequestration and climate risks,” concludes Pretzsch.
Publication:
Forest stand growth dynamics in Central Europe have accelerated since 1870,
Pretzsch, H., Biber, P., Schütze, G., Uhl, E., Rötzer, Th., (2014)
Nat. Commun. 5:4967, DOI:10.1038/ncomms5967
Abstract:
Forest ecosystems have been exposed to climate change for more than 100 years, whereas the consequences on forest growth remain elusive. Based on the oldest existing experimental forest plots in Central Europe, we show that, currently, the dominant tree species Norway spruce and European beech exhibit significantly faster tree growth (+32 to 77%), stand volume growth (+10 to 30%) and standing stock accumulation (+6 to 7%) than in 1960. Stands still follow similar general allometric rules, but proceed more rapidly through usual trajectories. As forest stands develop faster, tree numbers are currently 17–20% lower than in past same-aged stands. Self-thinning lines remain constant, while growth rates increase indicating the stock of resources have not changed, while growth velocity and turnover have altered. Statistical analyses of the experimental plots, and application of an ecophysiological model, suggest that mainly the rise in temperature and extended growing seasons contribute to increased growth acceleration, particularly on fertile sites.
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Some claim wood is superior when it doesn’t grow so fast, and the grain is dense. For example, some say the reason Stradivarius violins sound good is because the maples they were made from grew stressed and slowly, in a cold region of Croatia,.during the Maunder Minimum.
Of course, people went hungry in the Maunder Minimum. When it comes to eating and avoiding starvation, I’m all for rapid growth.
Yes, but it was only poor people who starved & now the rich can listen to good music !!
So our poor must starve so the likes of Al Gore can fly around the world.
You should know your lowly place in society !!
And we are seeing the benefit of the CO2 levels in our crop yield this year as well (although, admittedly, agricultural science has a lot to do with it too….).
http://www.dairyherd.com/dairy-news/Record-corn-and-soybean-yields-crop-sizes-anticipated-274773871.html
I’ve seen references to hundreds of studies on the benefits of higher CO² levels on nearly every type of plant species, and the effect of a mere 400 ppmv is just the beginning.
Moving up to 750-800 or even more really gives enhanced growth and agricultural production.
Regarding tree growth, I haven’t yet seen an analysis of the effect of faster growth on lumber strength, elasticity, stiffness, etc.
If I remember correctly, slower growing softwoods are stronger, while faster growing hardwoods are stronger.
There’s not much use for Beech, relatively speaking, in the USA, but Oaks, members of the Beech family, are extensively used.
If enlarged growth rings in structural softwood lumber reduce the various moduli of “strength”, this may have implications on lumber grading of Doug Fir-Larch, SYP, and Spruce-Pine-Fir and the long time established engineering tables for the building trades.
If the funding far warmists stops, so will their “cause” AND if I see another CC paper on the CSIRO website, i am gonna chuck up all over Black Mountain
That sits with teh CSIRO in Australia reporting about a 20% ‘greening’ of this continent. Its a no brainer really and all that faster growth means faster circulation of water via transpiration and back as rain, a negative feedback, energy escalator to the sky. The big question for me is whether all that energy radiated from the sun and now stored in chemical bonds is a negative feedback. It has the same effect on the face of it.
Increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) have helped boost green foliage across the world’s arid regions over the past 30 years through a process called CO2 fertilisation, according to CSIRO research.
http://www.oarval.org/CSIRO-Foliage1982-2010.jpg
Satellite data shows the per cent amount that foliage cover has changed around the world from 1982 to 2010.
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.
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.
From Deserts ‘greening’ from rising CO2 (CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Australia’s national science agency. 3 July 2013)
See http://www.csiro.au/en/Portals/Media/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2.aspx
This was published originally at WUWT in 2013.
See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/08/deserts-greening-from-rising-co2/
Thanks, A.
Global warming activiat will probaly say that increased growth of trees is a bad thing
Abel bemused: “Global warming activiat will probaly say that increased growth of trees is a bad thing”
Indeed there has already been a long string of papers on Phys.org about the expansion of green land due to warming itself as being depressing, what with more asthma and more poison ivy and such. Now add carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide fertilization, oh boy, it’s a real horror show!
Also see “AGU says CO2 is plant food”, at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/31/agu-says-co2-is-plant-food/
More trees, that’s great.
This means more jobs and less unemployed workers on the dole.
We can employ people to cut down the excess of trees, employ others to put these trees through timber mills, even more workers to build houses from that timber, extra people to paint and plumb the house, carpenters to build furniture for the people who will live in these houses, truck loads of workers will have to bulldoze and build streets for all these house, and naturally there’ll be the planners and architects, along with power, water and sewerage services to be established,,,, and so it goes,,, work for everyone,,,, all brought to you from this glorious excess of CO2 in our atmosphere.
Scientists should be researching how we can get even more CO2 into the atmosphere and so make more trees grow even faster.
My gawd, with all this logical thought I’ve just come up with, maybe I should have been a politician instead of a cartoonist. I know the pay would have been much better.
Anyhow, here be a cartoon on the topic . . . .
http://cartoonmick.wordpress.com/editorial-political/#jp-carousel-205
Cheers
Mick
This reminds me of this paper from 2009
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-009-9626-y
Date: 19 Aug 2009
Irrigated afforestation of the Sahara and Australian Outback to end global warming
Leonard Ornstein, Igor Aleinov, David Rind
Abstract
Each year, irrigated Saharan- and Australian-desert forests could sequester amounts of atmospheric CO2 at least equal to that from burning fossil fuels. Without any rain, to capture CO2 produced from gasoline requires adding about $1 to the per-gallon pump-price to cover irrigation costs, using reverse osmosis (RO), desalinated, sea water. Such mature technology is economically competitive with the currently favored, untested, power-plant Carbon Capture (and deep underground, or under-ocean) Sequestration (CCS). Afforestation sequesters CO2, mostly as easily stored wood, both from distributed sources (automotive, aviation, etc., that CCS cannot address) and from power plants. Climatological feasibility and sustainability of such irrigated forests, and their potential global impacts are explored using a general circulation model (GCM). Biogeophysical feedback is shown to stimulate considerable rainfall over these forests, reducing desalination and irrigation costs; economic value of marketed, renewable, forest biomass, further reduces costs; and separately, energy conservation also reduces the size of the required forests and therefore their total capital and operating costs. The few negative climate impacts outside of the forests are discussed, with caveats. If confirmed with other GCMs, such irrigated, subtropical afforestation probably provides the best, near-term route to complete control of green-house-gas-induced, global warming.
This new suggestion for CO2 enhancement of tree growth just makes the plan even more economical. The Aussies already have the mothballed desal plants built and ready to go.
I have always felt that the alarmists are much more interested in inflicting their misanthropy on humanity than on any benefit to the planet from their Carbon demonization. As an easily verifiable test of that hypothesis I would suggest that we all, for the purposes of agreement. offer to stipulate to most of the alarmists hysteria about CAGW, but only with the proviso that they abandon all their civilizationally destructive pursuits of carbon demons and sustainability in favor of this much simpler, much more economical, and much more likely to actually have a positive effect, proposal.
I usually try to avoid making predictions, especially about the future, but I’d be willing to wager a significant sum that faced with such a proposal i.e. a plan which is much cheaper, much more doable, which might actually work, and is almost totally lacking in any downside, but which offers them no path to exercise their self declared superiority over their fellow man and regulate everyone’s lives, they would be backwashing like crazy, arguing that such a scheme is nothing but the evil machinations of the Koch brothers.
Unfortunately I lack the organizational skills to make my plan a reality, but if I could bring it off, my view of how it would play out is the one thing in this entire disingenuous mess that I have the least doubt about.
Dave Wendt on September 17, 2014 at 10:08 pm
Irrigation and forrestation of desert are a great idea. These processes are happening – and will continue – naturally due to increasing CO2, without the need of any human projects. (A little help would do no harm.) Could this greening of marginal habitats that is being observed, due to CO2, come to the rescue of Beijing against the encroaching desert? Maybe that’s why they are building coal power stations so fast.
I know there was an answer to this somewhere on the site but I couldn’t find it, so I’ll just ask here:
at what level does the biosphere start dying due to inadequate CO2 (ppm)?
Oops. I had not bothered to read the comments earlier, but I see the answer is 150 ppm.
No; C3 plants will, but not C4 plants (grasses). C4 plants can extract CO2 right down to 0 ppm.
Corn is a C4 plant.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Getting hundreds of people to look at an idea tends to bring out the best (and sometimes the worst). Good information. Carbon dioxide is actually good for the world. It is an essential ingredient in life. It is not a pollutant in any contrivable definition.
So, would it be correct to say that if tree growth responds readily to CO2 content, then dendro climate approach is not necessarily measuring temperature, but gas: ergo, you cannot separate the two in your deductions from the experimental record since you now have no independent measure of the two
The only headline in the yellow press I saw, was: “Trees grow at a faster rate due to rising temperatures!” a short message about extended growing seasons followed. Nothing about CO2 as a fertilizer.
The scientists are putting the growth acceleration down to rising temperatures and the extended growing season.
This is not a valid explanation or excuse. If they wanted to illucidate the effect of temperature and length of growing season this is very easy, just compare regions at different latitudes. This secular increase in growth – if it were due to the fraction of a degree warming over the last half century this would point to an acute sensitivity to temperature which simply is not to be found in the real world. The much larger increase in CO2 is the only plausible explanation for the surge in photosynthesis of which CO2 is the fuel.
It is shameful evasion to pin the growth increase on a tiny temperature increase and to struggle to even mention CO2.
That should make the tree huggers happy.
Hey, I love trees. It makes me happy too!
Maybe I’m a tree hugger and didn’t know it.
🙂
I was involved in the logging trade in the early 1970s. I saw a lot of stumps consisting of mainly douglas fir with a smaller % of pine varieties. Any of the trees over 30+ inches diameter would have the inner core of about 14 to 25+ rings per inch. The outer rings, around 60 to 80 years in length, were spaced from 5 to 8 rings per inch. A 70 to 80 year old tree in the region would be approximately 22″ to 26″ diameter, and about 90′ to 110′ height. That would correlate with rapid forest growth starting early in the 1900s.
So its Tree Pollution now – where will it all end?!