Author maarjaara – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hawkesbury_River_1.jpg
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Belinda Medlyn, a theoretical biologist with Western Sydney University, trees exposed to enhanced CO2, in the gigantic open air Hawkesbury River climate study, grow 35% faster than their neighbours in the control group.
“Either they’re getting more carbon for the same amount of water, or they’re getting the same amount of carbon but using less water.”
…
Since 2012, the researchers have pumped extra CO2into three of six basketball court-sized rings of 80-year-old bush. This has raised the CO2 concentration in the three plots to about 550 parts per million, up from the ambient level of 400 ppm.
Measurements revealed that for each unit of water absorbed, the trees in the CO2-enriched rings reaped 35 per cent more carbon than the trees in the control plots.
The abstract of the study;
Rising levels of atmospheric CO2 concentration (Ca) and simultaneous climate change profoundly affect plant physiological performance while challenging our ability to estimate vegetation–atmosphere fluxes. To predict rates of water and carbon exchange between vegetation and the atmosphere, we require a formulation for stomatal conductance (gs) that captures the multidimensional response of stomata to changing environmental conditions. The unified stomatal optimization (USO) theory provides a formulation for gs with the ability to predict the response of gs to novel environmental conditions such as elevated Ca (eCa), warmer temperatures and/or changing water availability.
We tested for the effect of eCa and seasonally varying climate on stomatal behaviour, as defined by the USO theory, during the first year of free-air CO2 enrichment in a native eucalypt woodland (the EucFACE experiment). We hypothesized that under eCa, gs would decrease and photosynthesis (Anet) would increase, but fundamental stomatal behaviour described in the USO model would remain unchanged. We also predicted that the USO slope parameter g1 would increase with temperature and water availability. Over 20 months, we performed quarterly gas exchange campaigns encompassing a wide range of temperatures and water availabilities. We measured gs, Anet and leaf water potential (Ψ) at mid-morning, midday and pre-dawn (Ψ only) under ambient and eCa and prevailing climatic conditions, at the tree tops (20 m height).
We found that eCa induced a 20% reduction in stomatal conductance under non-limiting water availability, enhanced mid-morning Anet by 24% in three out of five measurement campaigns and had no significant effect on Ψ. The parameter g1 was conserved under eCa, weakly increased with temperature and did not respond to increasing water availability.
Our results suggest that under eCa and variable rainfall, mature eucalypt trees exhibit a conservative water-use strategy, but this strategy may be modified by growth temperature. We show that the USO theory successfully predicts coupling of carbon uptake and water loss in future atmospheric conditions in a native woodland and thus could be incorporated into ecosystem-scale and global vegetation models.
Read more: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.12532/abstract
A 35% increase in growth rate, and improved drought tolerance – whats the downside?
Professor Medlyn stressed that the experiment had analysed extra CO2 only “at the leaf scale”, with more work needed to observe the effects on whole plants and communities. Hotter conditions would probably cancel out benefits of higher CO2.
According to a study in 2011, which tested the effect of hotter temperatures over a prolonged period, the result was also a substantial increase in growth rates. Obviously, if substantial warming occurs, there will be exceptions to the rule – but my perception is its getting increasingly difficult, as data from such studies is analysed, to identify a significant downside to warmer temperatures and elevated CO2.
So in other words we should flog this to the California legislature and have them mandate climate change in order to preserve coastal redwoods.
That shoul
The US knew this about trees 2 years ago. In some trees it also helps them fight off disease, so healthier forests. I suppose funding is now needed to study every tree species on earth.
Chris (above) brings up tobacco/smoking and I’m so sick of hearing it because it’s all they got. He and his ilk conveniently overlook the science that said fat is bad, cholesterol is bad, coffee is bad, only to have conventional wisdom overturned. The fat is bad science was also based on cherry picked data, was used to create policy, and probably did more harm to people than good.
So no offense Chris, but take your smoking meme and stuff it.
His defenses…have gone up in smoke !!!!
Maybe Chris can tell us all how many cigarettes it takes to “cause” cancer?
Warmistas are all experts on carcinogenesis, so it should be a no-brainer for him.
100% nailed it NancyG22! Bad science propagated by vested interest….a sad scenario for modern science… However, thanks to the transparency provided by the internet and the “Wisdom of the Crowds” I hold strong hope for the truth to rise like a Phoenix!
@ur momisugly NancyG22
The following commentary was excerpted several years ago by me …. from one of the American Cancer Society’s websites, …. which you might find interesting, to wit:
And the CAGW “fear-mongering” of today is simply a repeat of the anti-tobacco “fear-mongering” of yesteryear.
Has anybody ever seen an apology for the great transfats scam that though exposed and vilified still rolls on.
Today’s Daily Telegraph (UK) has an article by Ken Thompson (in the aftermath of the VW diesel emissions row) about a Cornell study published in Nature in 2003 which found that cottonwood trees grew twice as big in cities as in rural areas, not because of higher CO2 levels or UHI effects in cities, but because city sites had lower levels of ozone, to which plants are very sensitive, than rural ones. This was thanks to the action of NO – nitric oxide, “which is more abundant in urban areas as a result of traffic fumes. So although less ozone may be produced in the country, it persists for far longer, because the clean air doesn’t contain the chemicals that would destroy it.”
Reblogged this on "Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising… and commented:
CO2 is Good for our Environment…Improves tree growth, and drought tolerance.
Interestingly the Hawkesbury is one of the Australian sites that has empirically refuted the prediction by Professor Flannery that the ground would evaporate off the water and the dams would dry out.
As the local Biologists are interested in testing CO2 effect on plant growth it would be a good place to test AGW theory on say 2C rise and CO2 fertilisation on plant growth, with added humidity, so important to global warming theory.
Without the added humidity of the theoretical climate models, CO2 cannot significantly warm the planet.
Such empirical work would allow sober assessment of the core claims of CO2 driven AGW theory and its consequences.
Reality always trumps theory as the recent topping of Warragamba Dam indicates.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/warragamba-dam-expected-to-spill-as-residents-brace-for-flooding/story-e6frflp0-1227500545331
Increased CO2 improves ALL plant growth.
Duh!
Since I only know what I read, let me quote a few sources that I value:
“The fundamental reason why carbon dioxide abundance in the atmosphere is critically important to biology is that there is so little of it.
A field of corn growing in full sunlight in the middle of the day uses up all the carbon dioxide within a meter of the ground in about five minutes.
If the air were not constantly stirred by convection currents and winds, the corn would not be able to grow.”
Vaclav Smil: ENERGY AT THE CROSSROADS: GLOBAL PERSPECITVES AND UNCERTAINTIES,
MIT Press, 2003
Patrick Moore: Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
2015 Annual GWPF Lecture
http://www.thegwpf.org/patrick-moore-should-we-celebrate-carbon-dioxide/
And this humdinger: In an interview published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on 14 November 2010, Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III, said “The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War…. one must say clearly that de facto we redistribute the world’s wealth by climate policy…. One has to rid oneself of the illusion that international climate politics have anything to do with environmental concerns.”
With David Archibald’s comment on it: “Global warming did serve a couple of useful purposes. The issue has been a litmus test for our political class. Any politician who has stated a belief in global warming is either a cynical opportunist or an easily deluded fool. In neither case should that politician ever be taken seriously again. No excuses can be accepted. “ They will all shortly be on display in Paris.
It seems to be assumed that plants (trees) obtain the majority of needed CO2 from the air. Is there any evidence this is so? I’m curious if plants could actually be getting their CO2 from the water. Given cold water absorbs CO2 with abandon. Green houses where CO2 is added by burning methane would have a lot of water condensate on the inner cover which would be full of CO2 dripping on the plants and absorbed through the roots. Just curious.
It is not assumed, it is a matter of detailed study and careful measurements, going back well over 100 years.
I had to reread your post Harry.
Are you really wondering if there is “any” evidence that plants obtain the majority of their CO2 from the air?
Seriously?
You might want to go into the field of climate science…you seem eminently qualified, having little or no awareness of a vast body of accumulated knowledge, wisdom and learning.
Sorry to seem cruel, but that is a rather silly question, considering that anyone who is commenting here could easily do a quick search and get enough material to read to keep one busy for thousands of years.
Google photosynthesis carbon dioxide air: 1,240, 000 results in .48 seconds
photosynthesis carbon dioxide experiment: 483.000 results in .42 seconds
Etc…
BTW, aquatic plants get CO2 from the water in which they are immersed…but it still enters the plant through the leaves.
In fact, water on leaves slows diffusion enormously, such that tropical plants have mechanisms to shed water from the foliage, and almost all plants have the stomata on the undersides of leaves.
Finally, the solubility of CO2 in water at room temp is about a gram and a half per liter. So, if a plant was waiting to get CO2 through it’s roots, it would have to go through a lot of water to get enough CO2 to do much growing.
I was simply asking. I looked at your searches and neither produced a single study on the first 3 pages.
And a million plus hits in google do not equal a single quality study that addresses the question at hand. I’ll assume you don’t know of one. I don’t either and thus I asked.
You note room temp water holds ~ 1 gr CO2 in 500ml. or .2% CO2 by weight.. That looks like CO2 is an order of magnitude greater in water. Perhaps more since ground water is typically cooler than room temp.. It is also known that plants use a lot more water than is directly used in photosynthesis. So if the stomata are busy spewing out water vapor like little fire hose nozzles, how would that assist in their intake of CO2 ? Wouldn’t they need to filter about 2500 air molecules to get one CO2 molecule? Wouldn’t that be tough to do if the stomata’s primary function is to exhaust water vapor? Like I said, just curious.
Good question.
Plants immersed in water produce half of the world’s oxygen. Plants can get CO2 from water.
When they do that they sequester carbon, derived from the water, to form of essential nutrients for consumption further up the food chain.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/chlorophyll.html
President Obama will order their extra-legal killings to appease and succumb his … “sexual desires”.
Ha ha
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Yet another example of how increasing CO2 (aka “plant food”) is actually good for the Earth, the cult of Climastrology notwithstanding.
Howard.
Apologies. If you were simply asking, I can give you a simple answer.
Plants do not acquire a significant portion of the CO2 they use for photosynthesis through the roots.
It enters through the stomata of the leaves.
This plant doesn’t have stomata:
http://dinoera.com/sites/default/files/stylites_andicola_03_cc.jpg
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Functional stomata are absent in submerged aquatic plants and in non-vascular land plants (for example, mosses) which are normally covered by a water film. Although it is now clearly established that some aquatic plants assimilate large amounts of CO2 from the sediment via roots, terrestrial plants are thought to assimilate only insignificant amounts of CO2 via this path*. Here we report on a terrestrial plant, Stylites andicola, which lacks stomata and is unable to exchange gas with the aerial atmosphere. Rather, it derives nearly all of its photosynthetic carbon through its roots. In addition, this species possesses characteristics of crassulacean acid metabolism.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v310/n5979/abs/310694a0.html
======
* see: “Plant response to irrigation with water enriched with carbon dioxide”
Thats absolutely fascinating. Makes you wonder how many other plants this uptake mechanism has been missed, particularly plants growing in carbon rich soil such as arctic peats.
Write it up, send it to Anthony as a new story – http://wattsupwiththat.com/submit-a-story/
We tested for the effect of eCa and seasonally varying climate on stomatal behaviour, as defined by the USO theory, during the first year of free-air CO2 enrichment in a native eucalypt woodland (the EucFACE experiment). We hypothesized that under eCa, gs would decrease and photosynthesis (Anet) would increase, but fundamental stomatal behaviour described in the USO model would remain unchanged. We also predicted that the USO slope parameter g1 would increase with temperature and water availability. Over 20 months, we performed quarterly gas exchange campaigns encompassing a wide range of temperatures and water availabilities. We measured gs, Anet and leaf water potential (Ψ) at mid-morning, midday and pre-dawn (Ψ only) under ambient and eCa and prevailing climatic conditions, at the tree tops (20 m height).
I think she got off the wrong intergalactical interchange, If anyone can please translate only this one paragraph, I’d appreciate it ( don’t make it much longer than 45 pages please). To me? Let nature do it’s thing, and a bit more CO2 would help, ask any greenhouse operator ( his livelihood depends on it).
The quest is on. I’m learning more about Stoma and CO2 and it looks like the science may not be quite as settled as could be assumed. I’m now looking for a study involving feeding a plant carbon 13 in the water and exposing the leaves to the atmosphere and then measuring the plant’s 13/12 ratio to learn how much of the CO2 is derived from ground water vice air. It seems logical this has been done. I simply haven’t found the study. BTW the Wikipedia entry on stoma is very good despite recent ClimateChange speculation. Using the ref table is more useful and the google.
Two other items. I’m assuming significant ground water CO2 is the result of cold rain having absorbed CO2 on its way to the ground. Also the mechanics of CO2 absorption via the Stomata continue to puzzle me. Most Stomata are on the underside of the leaves. Stomata exhaust a large amount of water vapor which is considerably lighter than air. Thus what forces cause the lighter water vapor to travel down and out of the stomata and allow large quantities of heavy air to travel up into the stomata so that the rare CO2 can be absorbed?
Several questions and observations:
– Can it be assumed that any CO2 that finds it’s way into plant cells will then make it’s way into chloroplasts and be used for photosynthesis. The answer to this seems reasonably certain to be yes.
– How selective are roots to various molecular, ionic and atomic species? Not sure. Water is thought to almost always enter the root hairs by simple diffusion across an osmotic gradient. There is some speculation that under dry soil conditions, roots may be able to expend energy to absorb water against the osmotic gradient. Minerals are absorbed via an active process that does require an expenditure of energy. mycorrhizal mycelium aids absorption in something like 90% of plants. The relationship is not always entirely symbiotic. In some cases, mycorrhiza is thought to be somewhat parasitic.
– Under acidic soil conditions, solubility of CO2 in water is increased, but in basic conditions (sweet soil), it is greatly diminished. Many soils are on the alkaline side. The increase in solubility in acidic conditions is one reason why carbonate tends to precipitate out when groundwater is exposed to air, as in caves or toilet tanks, etc.
– Under conditions of high humidity, near or at 100% which is nearly continuously at times in places such as rain forests, and especially in cloud forests, what happens to transpiration? It drops to near zero.
And yet these are places where plants are known to grow rapidly and photosynthesis is proceeding quickly.
– The capillary action in xylem cells depends on these tubules being packed end to end with water. In tall trees, capillary pressure alone is insufficient to force water to the leaves…it is only the vacuum suction effect that pulls water up from the roots as it evaporates out of the leaves. Would dissolved gases in the xylem hinder or interrupt this process?
– The details of the physiology of non-vascular and aquatic plants is almost certainly different in many ways than that of terrestrial vascular plants.
– Considering that there are detailed studies of the particulars of every strand of silk and kernel of grain in such plants as corn, makes me think that such studies as you are asking about have long since been done.
Prior to the advent of modern climate science, most things were actually verified by physical experiments prior to being asserted as being true.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections and commented:
CO2 is an essential plant nutrient.