Eye roller: Changing climate to bring more landslides on logged land

CO2…it’s a floor wax and a dessert topping!

No, I’m not a statistician, Remy (though I occasionally dip my toes in that pool). But this isn’t a statistics problem, it’s a botany problem.

Some people, who might vaguely recall reading about something called “Liebig’s law of the minimum,” assume that if drought stress is curbing plant growth, then extra CO2 will not not benefit the plants, because water, rather than CO2, is the limiting factor. That is incorrect.

Extra CO2 makes plants — even C4 plants! — more drought resistant and water-efficient, by improving stomatal conductance relative to transpiration.

When air passes through plant stomata (pores), two things happen: the plant absorbs CO2, and the plant loses water through transpiration. When atmospheric CO2 levels are higher, the ratio of CO2 absorbed to water lost increases, which improves both plant growth and drought resistance. The plants also commonly respond to elevated CO2 by reducing the density of the stomata in their leaves, which reduces water loss. That’s one of the reasons that deserts and near-deserts are greening.

The fact that CO2 fertilization is greening the Earth is unambiguously good news. Here’s a good article:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/the-world-is-getting-greener-why-does-no-one-want-to-know/

CO2 fertilization has many benefits. For instance, CO2 fertilization allows mankind to grow the crops we need on much less land. If we didn’t have the additional productivity we get from having CO2 at ~405 ppmv, rather than ~280 ppmv, we could almost make up for the loss of that productivity by putting all of the world’s rainforests under the plow. Almost, but not quite.

Remy:

“It’s not the things you don’t know that are the problem, it’s the things you know that aren’t so.”
– Will Rogers (paraphrased) (also sometimes attributed to Mark Twain or Josh Billings)

Remy, you wrote, “Tell me, why are farmers not increasing CO2 concentrations in their fields?……The answer is that it is not cost effective. Another way of putting that is that nitrogen fertilization is more important than CO2 fertilization.”

Wrong. I already answered that. I wrote, “That’s only because it’s hard to keep the extra CO2 from blowing away before the plants can utilize it. In greenhouses, where the CO2 is confined in an enclosure, most commercial growers do invest in equipment & fuel to raise the CO2 levels, because it is dramatically beneficial to the crops they grow.”

Was that unclear? Did you not read it before replying?
 

Remy, you wrote, “Please remember that correlation is not causation, and the “greening of the Earth” cannot be attibuted to CO2 because there are confounding factors.”

Wrong. There are no “confounding factors” — you just made that up — and the studies find that at least most of the greening is due to CO2. I already gave you this reference, which begins with a “source” reference, which would tell you (among other things):

The satellite data show that there has been roughly a 14 per cent increase in the amount of green vegetation on the planet since 1982, that this has happened in all ecosystems, but especially in arid tropical areas, and that it is in large part due to man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

Here’s another reference:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25369401
 

Remy, you wrote, “crops for food are not grown in greenhouses”

Here on planet Earth, crops are definitely grown for food in greenhouses. Try a google search:
https://www.google.com/search?q=greenhouse+vegetables

I’m surprised that someone who is so sure of his or her agricultural expertise would not know that. What is your background?
 

Remy, you wrote, “the proportion of greenhouses using elevated CO2 is minuscule due to the extremely poor return on investment in equipment…
Keep your daytime job, and don’t even think of investing your money into farming.”

I’m not a farmer, but you obviously know even less about agriculture than I do. That’s two errors in one short sentence.

1. The use of CO2 generators to raise CO2 levels in commercial greenhouses is standard practice, and

2. the greater part of the cost is not equipment, it is fuel.

If the use of CO2 generators for greenhouses were “minuscule” do you think a google search would return 170,000 hits?
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22CO2+generator*%22

Remy,
If you google ‘greenhouse CO2 enhancement’, you will find links to peer reviewed papers. Here’s a non technical link for you:
https://fifthseasongardening.com/regulating-carbon-dioxide
You apparently don’t eat tomatoes, most of which are grown in greenhouses. Where else do you think tomatoes come from during the winter?
It’s also pretty silly to conflate Nitrogen fertilizer with CO2. While both are necessary, all the nitrogen in the world will be useless without CO2 to provide the carbon that’s the most important element in all of organic chemistry. Apparently, you need some education in multivariate regression/correlation.
You apparently don’t understand what the controversy is about. It’s about the magnitude of the climate sensitivity which is over-estimated by the IPCC by such a wide margin that it defies the known laws of physics. Not only do they overestimate the sensitivity, they overstate imagined harm as they ignore all possible benefits. Frankly, even if they weren’t so wrong about the climate sensitivity, any resulting warming still wouldn’t be catastrophic.
No skeptical SCIENTIST I know of doesn’t understand that Co2 is a GHG, that man is putting more into the atmosphere and that GHG’s contribute to warming the surface. We all dispute the conclusions of the IPCC and its self serving ‘consensus’ that claims the effect is so large that it will lead to catastrophic warming,m hence the C. Moreover; we must spend trillions of dollars to fix it where the fix is to redistribute wealth from the developed world to the developing world under the guise of climate reparations. The conflict of interest at the IPCC, UNFCCC and World Bank behind the scam driving the so called consensus is a pox on science that will harm all science for decades to come. Your misunderstanding of basic plant biology in a vain attempt to support your otherwise anti-science views on the climate is an indication that this harm is already in effect.

Correction: “all fruits except cacti” should have just been “all fruits,” since cacti are CAM plants.

Based on the ignorance of this child, there can be no doubt that the NY primary education system has failed. Unfortunately, I’ve seen this in far too many kids whose impressionable young minds have been polluted with far left rhetoric that demonizes anything that promotes success and progress (and they call themselves progressives). It’s like so much else where the words they use are crafted to disguise their own faults by conferring them on others. It’s unfortunate that weak minds are so easily fooled and that the education system is actively cultivating weak mindedness.

Remy – I hope that your interest in weather drives you to be a climate ‘scientist’ because your generation will definitely see the the pseudo science pushed by the IPCC crash and burn. The lies have persisted only due to being bolstered by a corrupt ‘consensus’ driven by an organization hell bent on robinhood economics and that requires the corruption in order to support their agenda. Science corrupted by politics is unsustainable and in the end, the actual science will always win.

I see the remy character is another couch farmer/philosopher and imaginary scientist.

“Remy Mermelstein November 9, 2017 at 9:39 pm

AndyG55, tell me, does your “friend” with the 500 greenhouses air condition them so that they remain at ambient temps, or does he allow them to WARM UP and run hotter than ambient?
…
Oh……and tell me….how much corn, wheat, and soybeans does he grow in his green houses. Any oats, or alfalfa?”

Really deep into lala land there remy.

Farmers and greenhouse operators allow the actual greenhouse effect, that is caused by the closed convection of greenhouses, to warm up the greenhouse into summer temperatures. Since that is where maximum plant growth occurs and maximum ripening.

Yes, greenhouse operator run cooling equipment. Most run what is commonly called a “swamp cooler” where air is run over/through thick wet sheets of fabrics. Evaporation cools the air and maximizes humidity.
These growers also open roof vents to allow hot air to vent.
Plants grow best with strong ventilation. Swamp coolers provide ventilation air movement, add humidity and cool the systems when excess heat is problematic.

All of that glass acreage lets heat escape easily when it is cold outside. Greenhouses require heating far more than they need cooling.

Grain crop harvests are tallied as “bushels per acre”.
Those harvest are after the growing/maturing/ripening cycle.

Yes, there are greenhouse operations covering tens of acres, but those growers focus on high value products that can provide continuous harvest. Fresh greens, tomatoes, peppers, orchids, poinsettias, whatever.

Grain crops earn minimal profit per crop. Greenhouses are expensive to construct, expensive to maintain, expensive to staff and extremely expensive to heat during cold spells.
One greenhouse grower describes meltwater running down the outside of his greenhouse as “ground up and burned dollars”.

When faced with elimination of the corn to alcohol subsidies, corn farmers shrieked. After corn prices peaked over a decade ago, corn farmers earn very little per acre of corn. The same goes for other grain and legume growers as the farmers struggle to keep customers and earn their living.

But then, the ignorant do as the ignorant want to, since experience nor knowledge do not hamper their delusions.

Another looney that doesn’t really read the links he links to:

“Remy Mermelstein November 9, 2017 at 10:20 pm
AndyG55, 1600 coal plants: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=25272”

“Remy Mermelstein November 9, 2017 at 10:22 pm
1600 coal plants: http://www.powermag.com/industry-in-turmoil-coal-plants-shutting-down-around-the-world/“

From your link:

Closing small older coal facilities.

“The amount of coal capacity retired in 2015 was about 4.6% of the nation’s coal capacity at the beginning of that year. Nearly half of the 2015 retired coal capacity was located in three states—Ohio, Georgia, and Kentucky—and those states each retired at least 10% of their coal capacity in 2015. Other states that traditionally have had high levels of coal-fired electricity generation, such as Indiana, West Virginia, and Virginia, each retired at least one GW of coal capacity in 2015.”

Only 4.6% retired. And most of those were either converted or replaced by LPG fired generation facilities.

“More than 80% of the retired capacity was conventional steam coal. The coal-fired generating units retired in 2015 tended to be older and smaller in capacity than the coal generation fleet that continues to operate.

Coal’s share of electricity generation has been falling, largely because of competition with natural gas. Environmental regulations affecting power plants have also played a role. About 30% of the coal capacity that retired in 2015 occurred in April, which is when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule went into effect.”

Imagine that!? 30% of the closures were caused by Obama politics.

“Remy Mermelstein November 9, 2017 at 6:52 pm
daveburton, how do you disprove the conjecture that the increase in CO2 has increased global temperatures, which has increased the amount of ocean evaproation, which then increases rainfall in arid areas?”

A) The CO2 hypothesis has never been proven in real world conditions. Trillions of dollars have been spent while ignoring that CO2 AGW & CAGW in strictly a theory.

B) Every climate and weather prediction made by AGW and CAGW believers has been falsified as prediction dates pass.
– a) One failure would have disproved Einstein’s theory. But then, Einstein was a true scientist.
– b) None of the climate models work. Averaging models and pretending the averaged result is useful is pure delusion.

C) All of the critical claims by alarmists have been falsified.
– a) The Arctic is not melting unusually. And the Arctic appears to be entering a cool cycle while the Antarctic enter a warming cycle. Neither cycle is dependent upon a trace gas.
– b) Storms are not more frequent nor more powerful.
– c) Rising temperatures are in line with recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA)
– d) Sea levels are rising just as slowly as the last few centuries.
– e) Polar bears are thriving. Walruses and seals are thriving.
– f) Rain is not more frequent, floods are not more frequent, deluges are not more common.
– g) Droughts have been less common; so people should dread returning to historical drought frequencies.
– h) Hurricanes are not more frequent or more powerful. Again, people should dread Earth returning to historical hurricane frequency.
– i) Oceans are not heating up. What increases are alleged by NOAA require centuries for increases measured by degree C°. N.B. that NOAA did not include error rates for equipment that is not verified and certified upon deployment or after maintenance.
– j) NOAA and other activist meteorology stations, much like yours, fail to track, aggregate and present errors inherent is their temperature collection sites, locations and equipment. Yet their entire AGW model worlds are dependent upon calculating tenths of a degree anomalies while ignoring errors and error propagation.
– k) N.B. NOAA model worlds freely and frequently “adjust” temperatures, including using stations up to 1200km away to “correct” recorded temperatures. In the real world, adjustments are equivalent to acknowledged error. When a temperature is “adjusted” 2 degrees; that is admission that there is a minimum error for that temperature of 2°.

D) Then again, in the real world, people who “adjust” recorded numbers are prosecuted, pay fines and are often incarcerated.