UCI study: Higher heat will limit ecosystem’s role in removing atmospheric CO2
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – IRVINE
Irvine, Calif., July 22, 2021 – To meet an ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2045, California’s policymakers are relying in part on forests and shrublands to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but researchers at the University of California, Irvine warn that future climate change may limit the ecosystem’s ability to perform this service.
In a paper published today in the American Geophysical Union journal AGU Advances, the UCI Earth system scientists stressed that rising temperatures and uncertain precipitation will cause a decrease in California’s natural carbon storage capacity of as much as 16 percent under an extreme climate projection and of nearly 9 percent under a more moderate scenario.
“This work highlights the conundrum that climate change poses to the state of California,” said lead author Shane Coffield, a UCI Ph.D. candidate in Earth system science. “We need our forests and other plant-covered areas to provide a ‘natural climate solution’ of removing carbon dioxide from the air, but heat and drought caused by the very problem we’re trying to solve could make it more difficult to achieve our objectives.”
Trees and plants draw CO2 from the atmosphere when they photosynthesize, and some of the carbon ends up stored in their biomass or the soil. California’s climate strategy depends in part on enhanced carbon storage to offset some of the emissions from transportation, power generation and other sources. The combination of this natural carbon sequestration system and measures to promote green energy is hoped to help the state reach its target of not contributing net carbon to the environment by 2045.
But the UCI scientists suggest that an even more aggressive approach to curtailing emissions may be necessary.
“The emissions scenario that we follow will have a large effect on the carbon storage potential of our forests,” said co-author James Randerson, who holds the Ralph J. & Carol M. Cicerone Chair in Earth System Science at UCI. “A more moderate emissions scenario in which we convert to more renewable energy sources leads to about half of the ecosystem carbon [sequestration] loss compared to a more extreme emissions scenario.”
Coffield said that current climate models are not in agreement about California’s future precipitation, but it’s probable that the northern part of the state will get wetter and the southern part drier. He also said that coastal areas of Central and Northern California and low- and mid-elevation mountain areas – sites of large offset projects – are the most likely to lose some of their carbon sequestration powers over the next several decades.
In addition, the researchers were able to estimate the effects of climate change on specific tree species. They project that coast redwoods will be constrained to the far northern part of their range by the end of the century and that hotter, drier conditions will favor oak trees at the expense of conifers.
While the study used statistical modeling to peer into the future of the state’s ecosystems, the research also highlights the importance of present-day drought and wildfire as key mechanistic drivers of carbon sequestration losses. Other studies have estimated that the 2012-2015 drought killed more than 40 percent of ponderosa pines in the Sierra Nevada range. Another issue the researchers describe is the loss of trees from California’s worsening wildfire situation.
“We hope that this work will inform land management and climate policies so that steps can be taken to protect existing carbon stocks and tree species in the most climate-vulnerable locations,” Randerson said. “Effective management of fire risk is essential for limiting carbon [sequestration] losses throughout much of the state.”
###
Joining Coffield and Randerson on this project were Kyle Hemes, from the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University; Charles Koven, from the Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and Michael Goulden, UCI professor of Earth system science and ecology & evolutionary biology. The study received funding from the National Science Foundation, the UC National Laboratory Fees Research Program, and the California Strategic Growth Council’s Climate Change Research Program.
Draw CO2 out of the air as much you like, later you will see starving forests and the natural CO2 sink will disappear so fast, you can’t follow it.
Do these “scientists” deny the greening of the planet?
Yeah, George, I was just thinking the same thing. Even the Sahara desert is greening thanks to CO2 but, somehow, Calif. is managing to not participate in the boon to the biosphere more CO2 is giving to Earth? OK, that doesn’t really surprise me. There is nothing that Calif. can’t screw up.
Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
California’s government solely responsible for states forest management and wildfire debacle
5/14/19
https://bit.ly/3lW5MB7
This is part of the homeostatic mechanism which maintains earth’s climate. These people are now trying to fight nature.
Not a single mention of the Mountain Pine Beetle population explosion that is actually doing the destruction, or the failure of government to remove infected trees to prevent the spread of more infections.
“…carbon mitigation efforts may be thwarted by climate change.”
That popping corn sound is not beetles exploding but heads.
The reason there are so many trees infected with bark beetles is that there are way too many trees for the water and nutrients the land can provide and Calif. opposes logging, (wich, btw, used to provide roads for firefighters to get to the fires), prescribed burns and all other measures to thin the forests to natural levels which was done by nature before via fires. With no thinning, or prescribed fires, the forests are overgrown and sick. Per US Forest Service, a healthy forest is 30-60 trees per acre interspersed with meadows. Now, it has 300-600 trees per acre and no meadows and they wonder why they have bark beetle and out of control wildfires?!!!!
On top of that, Calif. is so bureacratic, nothing actually gets done.
California’s government solely responsible for states forest management and wildfire debacle
5/14/19
https://bit.ly/3lW5MB7
But, but, but I have been told for a couple decades now that the pine beetle explosion was a direct result of Global Warming. How could they omit them from their propaganda.
Then it was more SWAG Science, complete with the might be, probably Hobgoblins for the Propaganda Press to terrify the indoctrinated masses.
A couple of decades later it has become Unsophisticated Wild Arse Guess or UWAG. As in “You make up the Tale that wagged the dog”
We are DOOMED! Send money. I’ll try to fix it.
s/fix/study/
Couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people.
How will it go if the climate cools over the next 30 years?
They sell it as their success, what else ? 😀
Kalifornia’s climate strategy is to buy electricity from their neighboring states and turn a blind eye towards how it is generated.
They also are the main draw down of Lake Mead.
They are IDIOTS, or criminals. In California, it’s difficult to determine which attribute is the cause of their problems. Maybe, both?
Facing Dry Year, CA State Water Board is Draining California Reservoirs
May 21, 2021
https://bit.ly/3A2mtTe
CA reservoirs were designed to provide a steady five year supply for all users, and were filled to the top in June 2019
And ignore the fire danger the added thousands of miles of transmission lines from their “ruinables” to the population centers which no company on earth, including their electric company can possibly maintain. They got fooled last summer when Az,, Nev., and Washington were hot as well and had no excess electricity to sell to them. They had massive blackouts as a result of their politicians green stupidity.
From the Abstract:
“RCP8.5 projections of temperature and precipitation are estimated to drive decreases of 16.1% ± 7.5% in above ground live carbon by the end of the century, with coastal areas of central and northern California and low/mid-elevation mountain areas being most vulnerable. With RCP4.5 projections, declines are less severe, with 8.8% ± 5.3% carbon loss. In either scenario, increases in temperature systematically cause biomass declines, and the spread of projected precipitation across 32 CMIP5 models contributes to substantial uncertainty in the magnitude of that decline.”
RCP 8.5 comes riding to the rescue to find significant impact in diverse ecology fields. These researchers are just riding the Climate Scam gravy train to publication success by duping the public with unrealistic modelling scenarios.
RCP 8.5 is being the honey pot trap it was intended to be when the IPCC scammers set it up. They knew the lure of “significant impacts” would be too irresistible for hungry researchers in crowded biodiversity and ecology fields looking for publication success by selling scaremongering.
Link to paper here:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021AV000384
What is “live carbon”?
research gobblydegook for “trees and green brush” i.e. plants.
Carbon-based life forms.
–
Wait… that’s us!
Keith Richard’s new band.
Clapton, who’s otherwise known as Slow Hand, had a rather quick response to Johnson. “Following the PM’s announcement on Monday the 19th of July 2021 I feel honor-bound to make an announcement of my own,” Clapton said, according to John Blistein for Rolling Stone. “I wish to say that I will not perform on any stage where there is a discriminated audience present. Unless there is provision made for all people to attend, I reserve the right to cancel the show.”
Eric Clapton Refuses To Play Where Covid-19 Vaccination Is Required
See also:
Eric Clapton’s Anti-Vaccine Diatribe Blames ‘Propaganda’ for ‘Disastrous’ Experience
Eric Clapton detailed his “disastrous” health experience after receiving the Covid-19vaccine and blamed “the propaganda” for overstating the safety of the vaccine in a letter the guitarist shared with an architect/anti-lockdown activist.
The study authors admit that the UN IPCC CliSciFi individual models are all over the place on precipitation estimates. They conclude, though, that precipitation will decline. Great crystal ball they have.
Wasn’t rising CO2 supposed to increase atmospheric moisture? Wouldn’t that cause more precipitation. It’s like their “ocean acidification” nonsense. They claim ocean warming, causing the oceans to out-gas CO2 … while simultaneously dissolving CO2 to increase pH. Which is it?
If the authors had stated their estimates and uncertainties properly, they would have shown “16.% ± 8.%” and “9.% ± 5.%,” respectively. That is, their estimates are only valid to the units column, being the last significant figure, and the uncertainties are at least 50% of the best estimate. They are deluding themselves if they think that the numbers in the tenths-column have any real meaining. However, laymen may think that the authors actually know what they are doing when they present numbers for the tenths-column!
They also don’t indicate whether the uncertainties represent 2 sigma or 1 sigma; however, had they used 2-sigma as most robust disciplines do, then their ‘best estimates’ would be no better than a mid-range value.
Would you drive over a bridge designed by these charlatans?
Excuse Clyde intruding a little OT but I struggle with the magic statisticians can weave with numbers on decent input so a question from a layman if you don’t mind.
There’s never a cumulative effect, in that any claim to be the hottest year eva does not seem to be represented by being built on the previous hottest year eva if it were shouldn’t it already be a Mediterranean or thereabouts in Antarctica now.
To defend myself slightly I do know statistics are not looked at like this but if they tell me I was given $1 dollar more than I received last year and will get a dollar more next year but I’ve actually got even less next year one tends to puzzle. So that’s the question where’s the cumulative total they scream about going?
David, I think you ask a wonderful, sensible question. I hope Clyde answers you because I’d like to know the answer to that as well. Thanks.
It is where the common phrase “Past performance is no guarantee of future results” originates from. Just because you got a dollar this year doesn’t mean you WILL GET a dollar next year! It only means you MIGHT GET a dollar next year.
Look up Metrology (not meteorology) which is the study of measurements and their accuracy and precision. Climate scientists appear to have no knowledge of this and just assume you can increase precision/accuracy through statistical analysis. God I wish the physical world worked that way. We could use yardsticks instead of micrometers.
What most don’t realize is that the “uncertainty of the sample mean” statistical parameter has nothing to do with how accurate or precise the mean of the measurements actually is. It only describes how close the calculated mean is to the true mean of the data. They are two different things.
Joel, wait a minute, I thought all the problems CO2 caused were GLOBAL. How is it that Calif. is going to suffer from a lack of CO2 when CO2 increase is a global problem, per the
IPCC and every alarmist? I’m so confused.
If they really believe that, maybe they should go back to fossil fuels, add CO2 to their atmosphere and stop with the ruinables only absurdity? After all, with all of the CO2 being pumped out by China and the developing world, California’s CO2 reductions are a pitifully tine amount anyway. That’s too rational isn’t it, especially, for a bunch who thinks CO2 is evil until now, when it’s good. You can’t make this stuff up!
“… To meet an ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2045, California’s policymakers are relying in part on forests and shrublands to remove CO2 from the atmosphere….”
Meanwhile in Canada we have over 300 billion trees, about 9000 per person, each of which only needs to add 2kg of cellulose per year to completely offset our CO2 emissions. This does not include new growth where the permafrost is supposedly racing northward at 75 km per year emitting CO2 faster than foamy beer according to the climate liars…..but our government has increased the carbon tax to $30 per tonne….because our policymakers insist that as Canada’s forests are mature, growth balances (death + logging) so we are “trees net zero”. Maybe California and Canada policy makers needs to get together to explain this quite different viewpoint.
It should be noted that California and the province of Quebec did get together on carbon credit trading for Hydro Quebec’s credits on electrical power generation….so one government and another enabling each other’s big monopolies to reduce their government imposed carbon taxes by trading credits at government approved rates so that governments can look eco-friendly to eco-voters. Net actual CO2 reduction nil, carbon taxes paid by consumers…substantial.
That was an unconstitutional agreement. Only the Federal government (via Executive branch treaty and Senate ratification) can negotiate pacts with foreign governments.
Joel
Huh? They are just buying and selling sheets of paper between companies with state oversight as to ‘value’….no different than selling corporate share certificates.
You haz been reading Montgomery’s book about ‘Dirt’
His theory was, borne of riding in an aeroplane over Canadia, was that the Laurentide Ice Sheet very effectively bulldozed (all the dirt/topsoil/forest/plants off the surface of Canadia and moved it all south.
To a place now referred to as The Great Plains. After having had an undisturbed interglacial (the previous one to now) to develop, that dirt was highly ‘processed’ (finely ground)
Thus the nutrient it contained was extremely ‘available’ to any plants that put roots into it.
The bison/buffalo loved it and cherished.
Until some muppets came along and shot them all.
Ho hum, muppets made recompense by growing sugar where the bison used to roam.
Nothing to wrong there, and even if it does the sugar will give them Dopamine and tell them that “Everything has never been better”
Why didn’t they stick with the original recipe of Coca Cola? Cocaine delivers simply epic Dopamine.
Until the muppets fouled up again, they overdid the ploughing & sugar production with result that all the dirt blew away in the wind.
Messy. It appears that The Climate did something funny around that time :-/
So they set about draining the aquifer that runs under it all, to try and get the sugar to grow again. And it did. So far so good.
Except that the muppets have now taken to burning the sugar thus produced – what is it with these pyro-maniacal clowns?
But wait, the aquifer is now nearly dry.
Will The Muppets be lucky on their 3rd attempt at creating a new desert?
Never mind the history lesson, the upshot for Canadia was that a whole continent-sized raft of new rock was exposed.
And as you say, the trees are luvvin’ it
I’m sorry, I’m confused. Are you saying they are growing sugar cane in Canada?
I really feel for you. I have always loved Canada and Canadians (well, most of them). Under Trudeau, you are one of the nations that seems to be heading towards Armageddon even faster than the US. Of course, with senile Joe at the helm of the US, we may well shortly surpass you.
OT: UK tabloid: “Something’s seriously wrong with Joe’: Ex-White House physician Ronny Jackson says he believes the president, 78, will be forced to resign or will face the 25th Amendment because he is NOT fit for office.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9821135/Former-White-House-physician-said-believes-Biden-forced-resign-fitness.html
Don’t believe much of what you read in the UK tabloid full of skimpy dressed girlys, but prey that they may have scoop of the year.
President Trump answered all 30 questions on the Cognitive Test correctly. The doctors were impressed.
I would suggest Joe Biden take the test, but no doubt, he would fail it miserably, and that might cause some people to think he should be replaced by Kamala Harris. I think that is a very bad idea. Biden is a fool, but he’s a known fool, Kamala is worse than a fool, with an authoritarian streak. There are no good choices here. We won’t get out of this mess until the Democrats are no longer in power. All of them.
And who is #2 in line behind Kackling Kamala the veeP? Krazy Nutter Nanc Pelosi who also hails from Kookifornia.
I hear the Republicans are calling for a vote to oust Pelosi. I don’t know how successful this would be, but the Democrats only have about a four-member majority in the House, so it wouldn’t take many disguntled Democrats not voting for Nancy, to kick her out of the office.
Yes, we definitely don’t want Pelosi as president. She would be worse than Biden. She still has some of her wits about her. And it doesn’t get more partisan than Nancy Pelosi. Dangerously so.
“… but prey [sic] that they may have scoop of the year.”
As bad as Biden is, I think he is better than the babe that would replace him!
Babe, really?
She may have slept her way to where she is, but she is no Babe!
Clyde, Biden is not the President. We don’t know who is running the nation, but it’s not Biden and it’s not Kamala. Now, if Evil Kamala became President, she might try to take the power away from whomever it is who is behind the the throne but she may have a real battle there. I think we have a right to know who in the hell is in charge but, it seems, those in power don’t think we need to know anything.
All that said, the only ones worse than Joe and Kamala and whoever is pulling the strings, Pelosi would be a whole lot worse! I’m beginning to think We Are Doomed.
Republicans will need to vote to remove Joe.
If they have any sense, a big IF for many of them, they will NOT vote to remove Joe until after the 2022 election and the new congress is sworn in.
Let Nancy bring it to the floor however she wants then stall.
The new congress, after removing Joe will appoint the successor to the VP, or NOT.
Now this doesn’t preclude Nancy from offing the Cackle to take over the presidency after Joe is removed though.
We really need 2 years of the cackle to get under EVERYONES’ skin.
Then the 2024 election to bring TRUMP! back, this time with all his appointees lined up to take over.
BTW, he did get one thing done, BLM the agency is now out of DC and into Denver. I would have preferred 90 miles west of Denver in the middle of nowhere though.
Only how many more to remove from DC?
I suspect tens of thousands might make a dent in the corruption but it may well be a whole lot more than that.
I prefer the form of removal (i.e. elimination) recommended by Rick Perry.
Dept. of Ed first.
I agree with former Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, who did serve in Obama’s administration.
But note that he is a GOP Congressman before you get too excited about the significance of his opinion.
Let’s let Ol’ Joe “speak for himself”.
Is it climate change as in Her Choice or her Choice? If the former, then people… persons can do little more than take a knee, adapt, good girl, boy, whatever. Conflation of logical domains is a first-order forcing of progressive corruption for the sake of political congruence matters.
on the other hand better not, else you’ll have president Kamala
🙂
sorry wrong place, should have gone on comment up.
While the study used statistical modeling to peer into the future of the state’s ecosystems, the research also highlights the importance of present-day drought and wildfire as key mechanistic drivers of carbon sequestration losses.
Hits all the funding check boxes and none of the science.
You can bet big bucks on Calif. never overcoming their bureaucratic mess to effectively deal with wildfires and they are doing all they can to make the drought as horrible as Mankind, or Calif politicians and their bureaucrats can.
Facing Dry Year, CA State Water Board is Draining California Reservoirs
May 21, 2021
https://bit.ly/3A2mtTe
California’s government solely responsible for states forest management and wildfire debacle
5/14/19
https://bit.ly/3lW5MB7
It cannot be repeated enough. Any current paper that gives RCP8.5 any credence is tainted beyond redemption.
Or the ‘journalists’ are in over their heads with respect to the science, which is pretty likely.
All evidence points to that being 99.999% true, Clyde.
Agreed.
Each element of the 8.5 scenario may be statistically feasible.
However if you arrange those elements in a cascading logic tree (if/then) with probabilities for each successive branching, the resultant probability of the scary outcome becomes minute.
(I got hooked on the “climate” scam circa 1998 when listening to a short talk by a Professor, who was working with Prof Lindzen and went through an example in that manner that showed the likelihood of catastrophe was remote.)
Roger Pielke Jr and Justin Richie thoroughly debunked RCP8.5 in their paper Systemic Misuse of Scenarios in Climate Research and Assessment, 18th May 2020 SSRN-id3581777.pdf
Waffle words and baffle gab; could, would, estimates, statistical manipulation, most likely, more moderate, peer into the future, blah blah blah.
Thought the ponderosa trees were killed by beetles girdling the tree…
It’s amazing that ponderosa pines grow for so many years into large trees, living through many arid cycles only to perish during a mild three year dry spell…
Leftists need to be denied funding for irrational alleged research.
I’ve lived in the SW in the middle of a forest since 2002. Three days after we moved into our newly built home in 2002, I woke up and our house was full of smoke! I experienced a very, very fast learning curve about forest fires. Before that, being from Kansas, I was an expert on tornadoes, blizzards and ice storms and never gave a thought to forest fires. I learned a whole lot and fast.
The bark beetles are killing the ponderosa pine because the forests are overgrown thanks to fire suppression and anti-logging groups. Per the US Forest Service, natural, healthy forests should have 30 to 60 trees per acre interspersed with meadows. Much of the West, thanks to fire suppression and anti-logging, has 300 to 600 trees per acre and no meadows. In the SW, there is not enough water, nor nutrients to maintain that many trees, thus, the bark beetle thrives on weak, sick trees and kills them. CO2 has nothing to do with that.
I live in Arizona which after the devastating fire of 2002, passed laws greatly reducing the power of enviros to stop the State from doing what is necessary to create healthy forests. Colorado, after that season, did much of the same. We are in much better shape now.
California did nothing and continues to burn and will continue to burn with or without climate change whatever that means to them or whatever study they come up with.
It’s not like forest management is rocket science. The Native Americans regularly set fires and burned away the brush and undergrowth. It only started to occur to the Forest Service and good, old Smokey the Bear that the Indians were right in 1980 when there were massive, out of control fires in the West. Many states learned their lesson, eventually. Calif., Oregon and Washington all still seem to be very slow learners and have yet to figure it out.
Climate Change has been the greatest gift to incompetent, stupid politicians ever. Whatever happens, climate change is the fall guy and a convenient excuse to hide their stupidity.
And the offset for the fires that are already “baked in” for the next few decades?
There is a whole lot that can be done. See my posts above. Calif and other blue states won’t do it, though. They are stuck on “natural” and green and refuse to learn a darned thing about forest health and management, unlike many other western states,
Can be done by puting all the green fanatics in controllled camps, then spending another trillion or two $ to catch up to where forest management should have been by now.
In some ways they are quite correct – when you have started out making a desert, there comes a point where the process runs away and finishes the job for you.
And deserts have inertia. Lots of it, they are pigs to be rid of.
So:
Point 1 is self explanatory
Point 2 depends on the nutritious and processed bits. As far as trees are concerned, The Rockies are made of nutritious food.
The rest is up to us:
Simples. Smash lumps off the mountain, crunch it up like we already do to (easily) 30Giga Tonnes of rock annually and put it on a train. Or a truck. Or a Tesla
(Is there a God, what’s with all the letters T – does this mean its Tea Time for trees?)
Too damn right it is. Or wants to be.
The CO2 removal won’t do a jot for the climate – the arrival of a new, healthy, vigorous and verdant forest certainly will.
Don’t think too much, just do it.
“Don’t think too much, just do it.” One of my favorite seduction lines.
“Baby it’s cold outside”.
PHD candidate says it all. FAIL!
Does this mean that there will be fewer forest fires because of climate change?
Looks like California is having trouble with Proterra electric buses:
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2021/07/24/report-bus-fire-causes-california-agency-to-consider-retiring-electric-buses/
OMG! Pennsylvania, Minn. and California, too? It sure pays to have “connections”. That way, a company doesn’t have to concern itself about delivering a reliable, solid product.
Just got to love our new Energy Secretary who sat on the board at Proterra while they were building and selling these lemons, don’t ya? What could go wrong?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/07/19/report-philadelphias-electric-bus-fleet-in-complete-shambles/
https://www.duluthmonitor.com/2020/09/19/electric-bus-pilot-project-reveals-problems/
Dear leaders will likely raise the carbon tax 10 more times before even questioning their own planners’ requirements for large numbers of parking spaces per strip mall and other establishment that is paving over the country by permit requirements behind the “good planning” banner. Visitors from the UK are amazed by the number of parking lots when taken up to observation floors of tall U.S. buildings.
So where do you park your cars in the UK? Just curious.
I once read somewhere that “if you want to remove Carbon from the atmosphere, one should build a library or tarmac a parking lot”. Removing trees (with their associated carbon) and making them into semi-permanent paper, or using natural tar is preventing their carbon from reentering the atmosphere. Odd, but it seems true!
”But the UCI scientists suggest that an even more aggressive approach to curtailing emissions may be necessary.”
But,but…. More CO2 means more greenery. They have created an oxymoron.
“We need our forests and other plant-covered areas to provide a ‘natural climate solution’ of removing carbon dioxide from the air’ In case Gov Newsom hasn’t noticed northern CA is burning up right now. You need live trees/vegetation to absorb the CO2. I was camping south of Lake Almanor area earlier this week when we were told to evacuate due to the Dixie Fire. We need to make a MAJOR change to our forest management. Forget the spotted owl, etc. When it is all burnt down will the spotted owl be OK with that?
Not just right now, but for the last 40+ years. The eggspurts in Cali have roasted and toasted millions of acres of their desperately needed forests. The carbon emissions from fires in Kookifornia exceed all human emissions combined. The solution proffered is belied by decades of their own malfeasance. The jokers from UCI are joking, right?
There was a bad fire outside of the Redding area several years ago. Now there are thousands of acres of dead trees in the local foothills. As dry as things are now that presents a lot of danger to that area.
Exactly G M. There is often more dead, dry wood after a fire than before. In the West it takes ~15 years post-fire for the brush to sprout up in the snag patch and accumulate fine fuels. That’s why so many fires these days are repeat fires burning over the same ground ~15 years later.
For a short period of time after a forest fire, the burned trees can actually be sold for lumber. Past that time, it’s too late. Some states, like Arizona, have figured that out and get lumber companies to pay them for removing dead trees. Others, like California, haven’t and never will.
I believe if we use count trees and their CO2 uptake, the USA is already carbon neutral. Anybody know for sure?
Perhaps there should be ‘Counting trees 101′ in all PhD candidates’ courses.
This might keep them busy enough and for long enough that they will not have time for other activities
Now that is a great idea, John!
Since when has precipitation been certain?
These guys must live in Camelot
The rain may never fall till after sundown
By eight, the morning fog must disappear
In short, there’s simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot
The Anasazi Indians all left the high desert of Arizona in the 200 year drought around 1100 AD. They moved down to what is now Phoenix and built a canal system to collect the run-off from the high desert and mountains. It is still in use in Phoenix today. It’s rather frightening to realize that a quite primitive people had more brains and intelligence than our Institutions, Universities, Phds and politicians do today.
My understanding is humans emit around 32 gigatons of CO2 per year. Natural sources emit around 750 gigatons of CO2 per year. The United States portion of the 32 gigatons is around 4.5 gigatons or approximately 14%. California emissions are around .5 gigatons or 1.5% of the human total. Thus California’s contribution to the total combined annual world emissions (human and natural) is 0.06%. If California reduces it’s emissions by half that would knock that number down to 0.03%. All while developing nations like China, India and most of the rest of the world are growing CO2 emissions. Sounds like California is dreaming.
” as much as 16 percent under an extreme climate projection “
Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP 8.5) ??!
Reading suspended.
Sorry, I missed Joel’s comment way toward the top.
“Coffield said that current climate models are not in agreement about California’s future precipitation, but it’s probable that the northern part of the state will get wetter and the southern part drier. “
On the other hand, they could just be honest with themselves and admit “Basically, we haven’t got a clue. The models are worth jack.”
I’m confused, don’t these researchers know that global average temperatures are not getting warmer, as they should if IPCC’s AGW conjecture is right?
First question to ask about a new scientific publication: is this an observation (real science) or a prediction (like astrology)? The paper in question is of course a prediction, not a scientific observation. Next question – have the authors validated the model they use to predict the future, meaning have they run the model repeatedly in a controlled fashion to show that it makes predictions consistent with future observations? If not then there is absolutely no reason why I should waste my eyesight reading this drivel and no reason anyone else should make decisions based on the paper’s conclusions. It is highly depressing how much “academic” output consists entirely of such crystal ball gazing used to justify the biases of the authors or the socially fashionable beliefs of people with the critical thinking skills of an overripe banana.
Government mismanagement of forests leads to massive catastrophic forest fires. CO2 released dwarfs the stupid savings efforts imposed on people. One volcano undoes decades of “savings”. But it’s all nonsense anyway. Earth is greener. We feed more people with crops that grow better with more CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 is the basis if authentic green energy – photosynthesis. More CO2, more efficient photosynthesis and better water usage. Plants are more drought tolerant since they transpire less water to make carbohydrates from H2O, CO2 and sunlight. Fewer stomata and open less.