From the UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES and the “temperatures are always hotter no matter what” department comes this study that makes very little sense on the face of it, especially when we have articles like this one: Hot in the City? How plants can help lower the temperature in towns.
. Of course, you have to consider the source of the claim, the same University that launched the “ship of fools” expedition to Antarctica.
Improved plant types in climate model show significant impact on temperatures resulting from earlier spring greening
Heatwaves from Europe to China are likely to be more intense and result in maximum temperatures that are 3°C to 5°C warmer than previously estimated by the middle of the century – all because of the way plants on the ground respond to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
This projected temperature increase found by Australian researchers and published in Nature Scientific Reports is more than half the change forecast by the IPCC under the business-as-usual model. The biggest temperature changes were projected to occur over needleleaf forests, tundra and agricultural land used to grow crops.
“We often underestimate the role of vegetation in extreme temperature events as it has not been included in enough detail in climate models up until this point,” said lead author Dr Jatin Kala from Murdoch University.
“These more detailed results are confronting but they help explain why many climate models have consistently underestimated the increase in the intensity of heatwaves and the rise in maximum temperatures when compared to observations.”
To get their results the researchers looked at data from 314 plant species across 56 field sites. In particular, they investigated stomata, small pores on plant leaves that take in carbon dioxide and lose water to the atmosphere.
Previously, most climate models assumed all plants trade water for carbon in the exactly same way, ignoring experimental evidence showing considerable variation among plant types. By not accounting for these differences, models have likely over-estimated the amount of water lost to the atmosphere in some regions.
If plants release less water there is more warming and a consequent increase in heat wave intensity.
The study is unique because, for the first time, it used the best available observations to characterise different plants water-use strategies within a global climate model.
“These world-first results will have significant impact on the development of climate models around the world,” said one of the study’s authors, Prof Andy Pitman, Director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Climate Systems Science at UNSW.
“However, it is the bringing together of observations by ecologists, theory from biologists, physics from land surface modellers and climate science in the global modeling, that is revolutionary.”
The work that led to the study required investment in detailed observations, model development, and high performance computing.
“This is a fantastic example of STEM-based science bringing together the ecological and climate modeling communities; two sectors which rarely work hand-in-hand,” said Prof Pitman.
It was also a great example of public-good science, said Professor Belinda Medlyn, theoretical biologist at Western Sydney University and co-author of the study.
“Our study of stomata was originally intended just to learn more about how plants work,” said Prof Medlyn.
“We were really not expecting to find these important implications for heatwaves.”
According to Dr Kala public good research of this magnitude can only be achieved through the strong institutions Australia has built up over time.
“These institutions have enabled us to develop a world-leading climate model, unique observation systems and computational infrastructure that has far reaching benefits,” said Dr Kala.
CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science developed the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) model used in this study in partnership.
ARC Discovery funding enabled ecological researchers at Macquarie and Western Sydney Universities to put together the plant observations from around the world to develop the new vegetation model.
At the same time the National eResearch and Collaboration Tools and Research Project (NECTAR) was key to managing the data produced by the ACCESS model. The model itself used National Computational Infrastructure supported and resourced by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy.
“This long term investment in key infrastructure is why Australian science continues to punch above its weight,” said Prof Pitman.
“It’s an investment with many public benefits for us and the rest of the world, that every Australian can be proud of.”
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Well I guess, by their math, billions of Humans having sex every night must increase the temperature by at least 19 C…..
Well I agree with this result. It is quite clear from the attached picture that the plants are NOT getting in the way of the sunlight, so it is applying its full heating potential.
g
These clowns have thrown all caution to the wind now. They are basically on a war footing after the funding cutbacks to CSIRO and as they say ‘all’s fair in love and war’. Andy Pitman is fast approaching a Flannery rating of RED HOT RAVING FUNDAMENTALIST. Maybe he feels he is back in the pack after his colleague’s Antarctic Ship of Fools farcpedition and needs to put on a spurt, after all isn’t that what XSpurts do?
Flannery’s coming to my town soon, $10 a punter to listen to him. Whatever *we* think of him, he is very well respected and is pretty sure to get a big audience.
Am I the only one to read the praise of Australian “institutions” as a coded way of saying “don’t sack the CSIRO climate scientists?”
On a serious note Flannery is an interesting case. He is a very good communicator and comes across as such. He has done genuine work in his actual field of science and done some very watchable road trip tyope TV shows about Australia.
That said he has that zealot’s weakness of mind where when he believes from the heart he just loses the plot and is utterly unscientific in his thinking. Witness his belief that Lindy Chamberlain must have murdered her baby Azaria because if a dingo had taken the infant (which is what actually happened) then Tim thought that would be very bad PR for dingoes,l him being a fan of native animals and all.
That sort of thinking is just unhinged and purely emotional and lacks any claim to objectivity. It is the antithesis of the scientific approach. At least he had the guts to apologise a few years ago when Mrs Chamberlains conviction was finally quashed and the bizarre and vicious witch hunt that gripped this country finally flushed down the legal toilet.
M Seward wrote: *That said he has that zealot’s weakness of mind where when he believes from the heart he just loses the plot and is utterly unscientific in his thinking. Witness his belief that Lindy Chamberlain must have murdered her baby Azaria because if a dingo had taken the infant (which is what actually happened) then Tim thought that would be very bad PR for dingoes,l him being a fan of native animals and all.*
Everyone has the foibles of the human condition. All people think unscientifically because the human mind is deceptive. That doesn’t differentiate a zealot from a scientist. What differentiates them, is the scientist changes their mind when presented with evidence, and the zealot constructs conspiracy theories, and shouts “troll”, while their misconceptions grow stronger.
Flannery changed his position about Azaria, which is what a scientist does.
His first degree level qualification was English lit. So yes, he is a good communicator. Ufortunately for him and his followers, he communicates BS in relation to climate change. I have watched some of his documentaries about Australia and EVEN IN THE FACE OF EVIDENCE THE CLIMATE CHANGES, SEA LEVELS CHANGE over EONS, he still believes emissions of CO2 from human activities DRIVES climate change. So, in that respect he is no better a scientist than those on the “ship of fools”.
“Seth
March 21, 2016 at 8:54 pm
Flannery changed his position about Azaria, which is what a scientist does.”
He changed his position in the face of evidence to the contrary on his views in this case (Over 30 years later). With regards to climate change, regardless of the actual evidence, he believes humans are changing the climate, globally, via emissions of CO2 by burning fossil fuels and this is bad for the planet. Could he be proven wrong, again?
These clowns have thrown all caution to the wind now. They are basically on a war footing after the funding cutbacks to CSIRO and as they say ‘all’s fair in love and war’.
Transpiration lowers the surface temperature. If stomatal number or size drops in response to increasing CO2, then transpiration drops, and the surface temperature in heat waves is higher.
I’m failing to see the incaution, or the “FUNDAMENTALIST”.
@Seth, as a farmer I have experienced heat waves on my fruit farms, plants react to heat by shutting down to save water, this rarely last for more than a few days and only during the day time. As such I, at those levels and the time frame involved, sincerely doubt CO2, in this context, has any long term, if any effect, on climate change as these people claim.
In drought areas, if water is a limiting factor for plant growth and each plant uses less, why wouldn’t plant density rise, perhaps keeping the total tranpirable water volume the same?
Flannery was directly responsible for the vast spending on desalination plants at various coastal locations in Australia. Most are idle, though costing huge sums in maintenance/monitoring/union jobs. I suggest that what was really needed were deflanneration plants!
I guess the concept of plants producing shade is irrelevant.
Yes, it is irrelevant to the impact on transpiration on air temperature.
But the models don’t underestimate the warming – they overestimate. The whole study begins with a false premise. Junk.
If the models were fixed to account for this they would overestimate warming even more and be even scarier?
Yes, I stopped reading when I saw they said the models have been underestimating the temperature increase. Maybe they were looking at the model output graphs upside down.
Climate activists would know if a graph was upside down, wouldn’t they?
If plants release less water there is more warming and a consequent increase in heat wave intensity.
And thus higher CO2 sequestration. Funny that didn’t make the editorial cut.
“This is a fantastic example of STEM-based science”. STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Fantastic indeed, Professor Pitman.
yeah fantastic..said as an Aussie with Sarcastic intent.
so I wonder then why these bloody fools didnt get the lessened respiration when ALL our Bloody Eucalypts and other native plants ignorant sh*theads like flimflam and others have been so called Experts in studies OF for night 200yrs?
hell some of our trees are so smart they turn leaves to minimise sun hitting them!!ie the angle east west to present thinnest area possible.
I guess that means that if we strip the vegetation from semi-arid lands. or if we take the trees out of our cities and suburbs, replacing them with concrete perhaps, they will get cooler, Well the sooner people cool down by removing all those pesky trees the better. I wonder why you see cows sitting under trees in the middle of a hot day, boy are they dumb!
Hmm, better study this, Grants anyone?
Not only dumb cows; dumb sheep, horses and chooks and dumb humans park themselves and their vehicles in the shade under trees to try to keep cool. How stupid! When they could all be out on the concrete in towns or bare soil in the desert when the temps are into the 35-40C plus range; much cooler that way! Ye gods! Give me patience!
I just don’t understand how variations in plant respiration increases local heating. I thought Australia was reducing finding for global warming research, anyway. This seems like a a lame attempt to tie plant biology to a funding source that is going away.
It is only increasing it with respect to the previous models/guesses that they are currently using. So it makes the models worse wrt reality.
Even nature must fall in line with communism.. where have I heard that before 😉
Transpiration helps plants cool, just the same was as perspiration helps humans cool. If the plant leaves warm up, then the air will warm via convection.
Water transpiration is more or less a byproduct of CO2 uptake. Plants aren’t trying to lose water. It’s just that when the stoma open to allow CO2 in, water goes out as a matter of course. That’s why with a higher partial pressure of CO2 some plants become more drought resistant. They produce fewer stoma to get the same CO2 uptake and thereby lose less water.
It’s worse than we thought.
FFS is all I can say.
…Ummm, Shepard….That is all you ever say !! I have to admit, it is to the point though ! LOL ….
“If plants release less water there is more warming and a consequent increase in heat wave intensity.” … but wait a minute – don’t plants release the water as a vapor, not as a liquid? And doesn’t that water vapor enter the atmosphere? And isn’t water vapor a greenhouse gas?
Yup – another one from the “temperatures are always hotter no matter what” department 🙁
That’s exactly what crossed my mind when I read this just now. More water vapour, by far the largest greenhouse gas, equals more warming. They want it both ways.
Here’s a cogent presentation arguing for cooling.
https://youtu.be/B1KYvz7FFrE
Grady-
Indeed. This paper is actually cheery news.
It claims that decreased water vapor results in warming and more intense heat waves.
Therefore, increased water vapor due to surface warming of the oceans results in cooling and less intense heat waves.
Water vapor feedback is negative, not positive.
Well, I guess if the plants absorb more solar energy, and more CO2 will cause them to, the initial thermalization of solar energy will be reduced. Since that must reduce the temperature of the ground less water will also evaporate from said ground. With less water vapor, the broad-spectrum absorber of long-wave IR, less solar energy will thermalize. If there is LESS HEAT we will, of course, see temperatures……wait….. they said what? But they say evaporating water off the surface of the sea will raise SSTs. I don’t think I understand and I don’t think they do.
Over time it could be that wasting water in fields might cause more clouds, cooling the area under the clouds. Less evaporation might reduce cloud cover somewhere, sometime but not right there and right them. Was it I who missed something or “them” (the authors)?
‘Well, I guess if the plants absorb more solar energy,’
In terms of Watts, how much this feedback would be? Just give an estimate.
Hint. By burning wood, you release the energy it absorbed during its lifetime.
..It seems the ” Green ” lobbyists have not only declared war on every bird that goes near their Choppers and Fryers, now they are declaring war on trees !! Oh the insanity. will it never end ?
This is how the CAGW house of cards collapses. In absurdity that even the uninitiated can grok.
As here. The satellite observed ‘greening’ (NVDI) is this stomata phenomenon for C3 plants, with an inverted result to this ridiculous Aussie paper. Bottom line in observational biology, C3 plants produce more photosynthesis biomass at higher CO2 while transpiring less water. 85% of all plants. C4 plants (15%) evolved to survive under low CO2 conditions the past 60 million or so years. Biology v. Warmunist climastrology.
Reading through the summary, it really doesnt read to me like a single actual measurement from an actual plant was ever taken.
Clearly, the only way to stop Global Warming is to kill all the plants…and all the people.
Kill them all, Gaia will recognize her own.
……Agenda 21 !
They are saying the climate models have made bad assumptions about the CO2 and H2O cycles of many plants. And that once the “correct” assumptions are made, per their wonderfully correct research, the models will show much higher temperatures that they do now.
But, as already noted by others here, these geniuses have no “system level” understanding of the climate and the role of plants in it.
I wonder whether the climate model owners will even buy into what they are saying. If this non-sense makes their predictions even more alarmist, I suspect many modelers will be quite interested.
This is obviously a very important research document and obviously huge amounts need to be spent on studying it further.
Just like every other piece of BS – and there are so many of them – masquerading as science in Klimate ‘research’.
Hard to tell what assumptions have been made here in this brief summary. Stomata close down to protect the plant from water stress, i.e. the plant stops transpiration to protect the plant when it can’t bring up water fast enough. My experience this relates to soil moisture status and humidity more directly than ambient temperature. Having spent a bit of time monitoring grape vine canopy temperatures on hot summer days on well drained, shallow soils I have seen the dramatic drop in canopy temperatures with the initiation of drip irrigation and I have seen adjacent vines on deeper, moister soils cool and content in no need of water. Thinking globally, one has to assume a warmer world is not wetter or more humid, or that earlier greening and with it earlier cooling does not compensate for lesser cooling that might come later..
@ur momisugly tommyterroir, your name gives you away!, As a former grape grower I completely agree with you, grapes have a notorious deep root system and with proper water management show little effects in a heat wave. In my experience leaves that showed stress were already close to the end of their life cycle and their demise had little effect on the quality of the crop. ( in fact many growers “stress” their vines to concentrate flavors by having less H20 in the grapes, a fairly common practice at the time).
Non-stop bullshit! You gotta hand it to these guys. They don’t let up. They will prove the Emperor is wearing clothes with mountains of headlines from papers that don’t stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny. I think that even beyond the neo-Malthusian agenda, the purveyors want to show that they can bulldoze reality and make the public believe or at least dare not challenge anything they choose. Ultimately, as reality asserts itself, you cannot apply enough energy to suppress it, but boy, you can’t say they haven’t given it a good try. It’s exhausting.
Non carborundum illegitimati…
LOL, climate models have consistently underestimated the rise in maximum temps? On what planet?
Their observations appear to be of the model output. I suspect that up until now the models have given rise to minimum temps but not enough to maximum temps during the daylight hours to match their expectations. Ergo the models have consistently underestimated their pre conceived output.
It could mean that climate sensitivity is even lower than they thought.
This reads like the crazed meandering of someone not connected with reality. The fact that this was even published is proof the MSM hasn’t a clue about what they publish regarding AGW.
“However, it is the bringing together of observations by ecologists, theory from biologists, physics from land surface modellers and climate science in the global modeling, that is revolutionary.”
Good idea to depend on the modelers for fizicks? Give em another tool to insert into their favorite model. More positive feedback in a bunch models that are already positive feedback heavy.
One third of the PR praises their money source… Yeah be proud. LOL