NASA says the greening of the planet is due to increased CO2, these guys are arguing against that, saying increased forest growth “correlates strongly to the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Index”. Riiiighht. They say that “Europe’s early turnaround and expansion of forest resources obviously can’t be attributed to the rapid rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide that began decades later”. By the same token, the U.N. didn’t exist until decades later, and they sure as hell haven’t had any impact on the greening of the Eastern United States as shown in their map below.
I call BS on this paper, especially when NASA says this related to satellite (not political index) data:
From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.
This is just another attempt to demonize the benefits of increased carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, and it’s a pretty lame attempt using political index data.
Global forests expanding: Reflects wellbeing, not rising CO2, experts say
Study finds virtually no correlation between higher levels of atmospheric CO2 and nations’ forest expansion/decline; difference mirrors the UN Human Development Index
The surprising, steady expansion of forests in many countries is a reflection of national well being and does not constitute a benefit of rapidly rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, experts say.
On the planet as a whole, forests and other terrestrial ecosystems have become greener, which several global climate change models attribute to CO2 fertilization, says the study, published today by PLOS ONE(in full post-embargo here: http://bit.ly/2JNB3TD).
In fact, however, since the 1800s transitions from net forest loss to gain have coincided with a switch within nations from subsistence to market oriented agriculture. Today the growth or decline of a nation’s forest resources correlates strongly to the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Index.
“Our findings offer an important insight for efforts to address climate change. Where people and nations are or become relatively well off, we can count on forests absorbing carbon at increasing levels,” says Prof. Kauppi of the University of Helsinki, who co-authored the study with U of H colleague Vilma Sandström and Antti Lipponen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
From 1990 to 2015, forest growing stock rose annually by 1.31% in high income countries and by 0.5% in higher middle income countries. By contrast, forest growing stock fell by an annual average 0.29% in 27 lower middle income countries and by 0.72% in 22 low income countries.
“From a policy development perspective, it is very important to understand why national forests resources change in such a surprisingly diverse fashion,” says Dr. Kauppi.
Transitions from net forest loss to net gain first occurred in the 1800s in Western Europe, then Central Europe and the eastern United States, followed by Northern and Eastern Europe, Japan and New Zealand.
The study, entitled “Forest resources of nations in relation to human well-being,” notes that Europe’s early turnaround and expansion of forest resources obviously can’t be attributed to the rapid rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide that began decades later.
“Weather observations confirm indisputably that global temperatures are rising together with atmospheric CO2 levels,” says Dr. Lipponen. “However, the study shows that, over more than a century, changes in forest growing stock around the world have been virtually unrelated to those trends.”
In the last 50 years, China and Chile have made the transition from net forest loss to net forest gain. More recently some subtropical and tropical countries of Latin America, Africa, and the Far East have done so as well.
The report says that between 1990 and 2015 some 13 tropical countries appear to have either transitioned, or continued along the path of forest expansion that follows such transitions.
A previously published summary of latest UN data (2010-2015) shows forest area expanding in Europe, North America, the Caribbean, East Asia, and Western Central Asia, but decreasing in Central America, South America, South and Southeast Asia, and throughout Africa.
At a regional level, the greatest losses are being experienced in Nigeria, Brazil and Indonesia.
The report says transitions in Latin America and Africa are uncertain and perhaps reversible. Africa is the continent with a great risk of further losses of forest ecosystems; a majority of the 55 African countries has not reported forest transition.
Impressing the experts was the forest transition in India over three decades starting in 1970 despite more than doubling in population (from 555 to 1,231 million, 1970 to 2010).
Brunei is the sole wealthy nation with decreasing forest resources.
“Highly developed countries apply modern agricultural methods on good farmlands and abandon marginal lands, which become available for forest expansion,” the study says. “Developed countries invest in sustainable programs of forest management and nature protection.”
The study attributes forest expansion to several factors that have outweighed the impacts of population growth and improving diets. They include:
- Urbanization, which draws farmers off marginal rural lands
- Evolution from a subsistence regime to market economy, which further concentrates farming to the best lands
- Better agricultural technologies and yields, relieving the need to clear new agricultural land
- Better transportation, communication, storage, processing, and consumer behavior, reducing food waste
- The availability of alternatives to wood as a fuel
Vilma Sandström underlines that another factor requires detailed impact assessment: developed nations increasingly outsource their resource needs to others abroad through international trade.
Earlier research suggested that growing stock stops decreasing at a per capita income threshold at US$ 4,600 (in 2003 dollars). Today the threshold is likely closer to $20,000 dollars income per capita.
“Unfortunately, deforestation continues in biologically rich forests,” the paper says. “The new expanding forests are biologically less diverse, especially where they consist of planted monocultures.”
Says Dr. Lipponen: “Human development can translate into the well-being of forest ecosystems. This promotes carbon sequestration and preservation of the global biodiversity in the long term.”
“Policy analyses must expand from focusing on individual projects such as carbon capture, biodiversity conservation or farm management to inter-disciplinary analyses of harmonized well-being of people and forests.”
The researchers also call for greater global scale monitoring of vegetation surfaces, calling “a major priority area in world science.”
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But this forest growth is in the last 30 years, long after the world transitioned to the modern way of living if it was going to transition. So the Sahel is greening, but they are still a largely agrarian society. The US is greening, and they are still a largely urban society. No change in society, plenty of change in greeness!
Interesting, and what kind of experts are they? Railroad engineers or some more astronomers parroting like climate scientists?
Actually checked and they’re just from Finland. We can safely ignore that one, they just probably went too much on the Koskenkorva.
Regardless of what the report says (I haven’t read it), both are true: rising CO2 benefits plant growth, and affluent societies can afford to worry about conservation and reforestation. Of course, to become an affluent society, fossil fuels are essential, but for some reason affluence seems to make people forget this!
Agreed
There is clear evidence that greater CO2 concentrations help plant grow, but also where I live in Pennsylvania the reforesting of of William Penn’s Woods has much more to do with the suburbanization and wealth of the area as it does anything else, something I have noticed over my lifetime where open tracks of land that used to be used for agriculture become suburbanized and the lands starts filling in with trees. Its not just the flura its also the fauna, Bears, Foxes, Coyotes, Deer and Turkeys are now everywhere not so when I was young. Wealth, capitalism and cheap energy are the best thing for both man and environment.
Anthony Watts said:
“I call BS on this paper, especially when NASA says this related to satellite (not political index) data:
‘From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.’
This is just another attempt to demonize the benefits of increased carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, and it’s a pretty lame attempt using political index data.”
Is greening of vegetated areas the same thing as forest growth? Are you really comparing like for like when making your determination that the results are in conflict?
Can you share some of the details with us, or is this as simple as you saying “well, one of these says more green due to CO2, and the other talks about forests which are green so therefore they conflict.”
Poor countries must burn more wood. I mean the black underground sort.
And yet, and yet….
We in the UK are chopping down trees in North Carolina to turn into wood pellets to ship 3000 miles across the Atlantic to feed Drax power station in Yorkshire which was built on a coalmine….
Because its GREENER….!!
” … The researchers also call for greater global scale monitoring of vegetation surfaces, calling “a major priority area in world science.” … ”
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Catastrophical greeningness! Gimme more money!
Carbon Dioxide is the only singular throttle in the Carbon Cycle of Life. Open up the throttle by increasing the partial pressure of atmospheric CO2, and the Cycle of Life becomes more robust.
They are aware of the impact greater CO2 has on plants, so they have been trying to spin that into a disaster story too. Lately I have been seeing these “scientists” spread a story that the increased plant growth due to CO2 will be a bad thing because it will lead to crops that have more sugar and less protein, which will make all vegetables become basically junk food with no nutrition.
I’m pretty sure that forestation levels can have multiple factors. In an area such as the Australian outback where there is no farming or other industrial activity, the primary factor in greening is atmospheric CO2. Outside Toronto, land being cleared for housing expansion is the primary factor in net forestry loss.
Someone needs to repost that picture Willis put up, showing the leftist state of Uganda or some such stripped of trees and its capitalist, fossil fuel burning neighbor with lush green forest.
Definition of an expert:
Someone who says what I’ve paid him to say.
Greening involves a lot more than just forests.
I thought that’s what NASA was doing.
They are ignoring the trend of cutting down forests to feed thermal power generation. It’s too recent to fit in their scheme and doesn’t agree with their conclusions anyway.
They are also ignoring the amount of forest cut down to make access roads and sites for wind turbines. Photos I’ve seen of Germany suggest a 10 to 15 percent forest loss in the ever-expanding wind farms.
So, let me get this straight: CO2 is NOT the cause of the greening of the Earth, but the improvement of human well-being, as a result of technology that uses fossil fuel to produce MORE CO2, … is.
How do you, then, separate one cause from the other, if increased CO2 is intimately connected with improvement of human well-being via technology that produces CO2 ?
In the end, it is still the use of fossil-fuel technology that has caused the greening.
Oops !
So if greening is ‘good’, it can’t be caused by ‘evil’ CO2? But unfortunately it is…
Perhaps we will soon be treated to a dire warning by the world’s gardeners that the wild forests are starting to grow into our cities, and that mankind faces green ruin? Which we can avoid by paying more taxes …
Read the first few lines. Correlation is not causation
Well we did cut down most of the NE forests and Great Lake region forests for fireword and shipbuilding in the 18th-19th Century. It was the discovery of abundant oil and coal that has allowed them to grow back,
So by Development Index, they really mean “When was Fossil Fuel Use Started.”
Stop uses fossil fuel without developing an adequate reliable long-term replacement like nuclear and those forests will get cut down again as mankind reverses development and descends back towards a harsh, brutish existence of firewood stoves and charcoal cooking.
The map probably matches one showing the availability of coal.
“The study, entitled “Forest resources of nations in relation to human well-being,” notes that Europe’s early turnaround and expansion of forest resources obviously can’t be attributed to the rapid rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide that began decades later.”
And yet, they somehow attribute warming to CO2 level changes that started HUNDREDS OF YEARS AFTER the temperature started increasing, despite NO acceleration in the rate of warming (once CO2 levels started to rise), and despite NO continued warming (at a lower rate – representing the [cough – non-existent] supposed “contribution” of CO2 to the warming) after whatever was (excuse me) REALLY causing the warming stopped.
AND second of all, BS on the notion that “Weather observations confirm indisputably that global temperatures are rising together with atmospheric CO2 levels” when temperatures have gone UP, DOWN, and REMAINED UNCHANGED during a period of steadily RISING CO2 levels.
Selective blindness, willful ignorance, unsupported assumptions and hypotheses, circular logic, confirmation bias, exaggerations, concealment, opaqueness, outright deception – the very essence of “Climate Science.”