Scientists Surprised to Find Earth's Biosphere Booming

radioweather writes "An article from the Financial Post says that recent studies of biosphere imaging from the NASA SEAWIFS satellite indicate that the Earth's biomass is booming: 'The results surprised Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA satellite data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated landmass — almost 110 million square kilometers — enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms in, it finds that each square meter of land, on average, now produces almost 500 grams of greenery per year.' Their 2004 study, and other more recent ones, point to the warming of the planet and the presence of CO2, fertilizing the biota and resulting in the increased green side effect."

So now we have the

[mrbluze (1034940)]

Green Side Effect as a result of the greenhouse effect. So are we all gonna die or not already?

Re:So now we have the

[FeepingCreature (1132265)]

My personal take on it is that the Earth is a very complex system with interactions that still aren't nearly fully understood, and since it's kinda the only living room we have, it would be wise to keep our interference as low as we can, until we have attained a much more .. certain understanding.

Re:So now we have the

[Gearoid_Murphy (976819)]

"Because, frankly, the stated aims of environmentalists - improving the forests, saving the fuzzy animals, and so on, is actually served by the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, as plants grow better in richer CO2 atmospheres and that leads to a stronger biosphere all round." Hold up there buddy, that is simply not true, many animals depend on icy habitats (polar bears, penguins) which are going to disappear with increasing temperature. Increased melting will disrupt the north Atlantic drift which will completely change the climate of northern Europe to something like the previous ice age. Increased levels of CO2 interacting with the sea will cause the oceans to become more acidic, this is already happening. Whatever the result, the planet is likely to be going through the most rapid period of change to its internal distribution of gases ever recorded, as a direct result of pollution from burning fossil fuels. As a species, humanity has emerged in a relatively calm period in the earth's climatic history, now, our children and their children, and heaven forbid, maybe even we, will have to deal with the consequences of these actions, which I doubt will "lead to a stronger biosphere all round."

Re:So now we have the

[Xiroth (917768)]

Feel free to read the rest of the post whenever you have time in your clearly busy schedule.

Re:I agree

[The Master Control P (655590)]

Oh look at this poor tribe that had to move from the coast presumably because of the ocean level rising (it has in fact declined on average).

The inhabitants of low-lying atolls and islands all around the Pacific would like to have a word with you.

Is biodiversity also booming?

[sweet_petunias_full_ (1091547)]

Biodiversity is declining and that's a bad thing even if more weeds are growing in Oshkosh.

The arctic ice pack is melting and that will ultimately change the earth's albedo in a bad way. I don't see much optimism in that, even if some plants in some places grow better due to changing climate conditions.

Return of the slime

[Ihlosi (895663)]

Biodiversity is declining and that's a bad thing even if more weeds are growing in Oshkosh.

That's a good point. I read an article a while ago stating that some parts of the oceans are experiencing a "return of the slime" - the higher life forms are disappearing, while simpler life forms are booming.

Probably not something we want to have. I'd rather have fish and seafood than algae slime, thank you very much.

Re:Return of the slime

[sweet_petunias_full_ (1091547)]

"I'd rather have fish and seafood than algae slime"

If sea levels continue to rise due to global warming, the spawning grounds for many fish will be flushed with excessive salinity which will wipe out those special ecosystems and drop fish stocks worldwide (...already in sharp decline). So as you say, the fish and seafood will be replaced with slime, and there will be more mosquitoes due to the lack of fish hatchlings to eat the mosquito larvae.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise [wikipedia.org]

Biosphere booming indeed.

Re:Return of the slime

[arotenbe (1203922)]

I'd rather have fish and seafood than algae slime, thank you very much.

Please, won't someone think of the sushi!

Re:Is biodiversity also booming?

[The Master Control P (655590)]

In the words of Wolfgang Pauli, "this isn't right. It isn't even wrong."

First of all, an ice age is only a time when average temperatures are signficantly below present levels. Most of history for almost a million years has been an ice age; The current interglacial has lasted remarkably long.

Second of all, we are not coming out of an ice age. Earth's global temperature and sea levels began a rapid rise approximately 20Kya and both leveled off near their current values around 10 to 12Kya.

Third, the extent to which industrialization has changed the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere in the last 250 years is unprecedented in the last 600 thousand years, and if you think it's not having an effect you're either delusional or willfully ignorant.

I smell bullshit

[by Anonymous Coward]

Quote from article "massive programs in an effort to remove as much as 80% of the carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.

If these governments are right, they will have done us all a service. If they are wrong, the service could be all ill, with food production dropping world wide, and the countless ecological niches on which living creatures depend stressed."

Bollocks, governments are not removing emissions, they are reducing emissions. Thus we will still keep all the CO2 in the atmosphere, we will just pump less new CO2 into the atmosphere.

Thus the plants can keep growing all they like, we won't be removing their food anytime soon. All we are doing is slowing down the pace at which we are overfeeding them.

corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, are biomass

[0WaitState (231806)]

So how much of this increased biomass is due to higher yielding farming techniques over the past 20 years? And how much of the higher farm yield is due to fertilizers from crude oil? (hint, in 1st world countries, you cannot profitably farm bulk crops without oil originated fertilzer)

It depends

[Moraelin (679338)]

Well, yes, but at the same time those plants absorb some CO2 out of the atmosphere to grow. And then you eat them, shit it, and it's not going back into the atmosphere. Or they get turned to clothes, paper (quick-growing trees are used as crops to produce paper), etc, which end up in a landfill and again it's not quite going back into the atmosphere.

So while some CO2 _is_ produced in raising those crops, yes, including in creating their fertilizer, they also remove some CO2 from the air. So the balance isn't as doom-and-gloom as you seem to assume.

Second, we're talking fertilizers, not plastics. Most of what those plants need is nitrogen, which actually comes from the air. (Fossil fuels don't contain much nitrogen.) E.g., ammonium nitrate is nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen. There is no carbon in it at all. (And even if there were, it would go into the plant, not back into the air.)

Technically, some carbon is used there, but at least for the Haber process that's methane gas from natural gas fields. There's buggerall need to start from oil to produce it. And it's recycled back into methane by the end of the process, so it's basically used more as a catalyst than "OMG, dumping CO2 into the atmosphere." The Odda Process is even more fun, in that at least one variant of it can actually use CO2 and fix it to CaCO3.

So all that remains as a source of pollution there is that, like any factory, it needs some energy. It doesn't necessarily mean oil, though. I'm sure you can use nuclear power instead, which, for whatever other sins it may have, has exactly zero CO2 emissions.

Consider the source

[JakartaDean (834076)]

Well, this would certainly be great if true -- the impact of increased global temperatures and higher availability of CO2 means that plant life booms, sequestering CO2. But...

Consider the source. The summary links to two rather untrustworthy sources of global warming information. Why are there no links to the actual study? Maybe the lack of appropriate links is, in it's own way, part of the story. Colour me sceptical.

Twisted Conclusion

[estitabarnak (654060)]

An excellent example of taking raw data and jumping to a conclusion. Certainly, if the numbers show that plant biomass is up, then biomass could very well be up, but is that a good thing?

This does not take in to account bioDIVERSITY. While we may be increasing crop density, causing giant algol blooms, is monoculture something that we really want?

You can introduce an exotic species of grass to populations in the Moaje desert which are extremely prone to burning, but will grow back from the ground. All of the native plants, which are not accustomed to fires die off. What you're left with is an exotic grass that any number of animal species may need be able to utilize. Destroy biodiversity at the bottom and everything above it falls apart.

Same goes for giant algae blooms in the Gulf of Mexico due to high nitrogen runoff from agriculture. Sure there's a metric fuck-ton of algae growing there, but at what cost? If the death of every other living thing (or nigh on) in the surrounding area is good, then... great!

Furthurmore, last time I checked, Carbon was not exactly a limiting factor in plant growth. I've seen plants die from pH, salt poisoning, incorrect water levels, heat, cold, you name it. However, I don't think I've ever seen a plant suffer from lack of CO2.

In short: To say that plant biomass alone accounts for a healthy ecosystem and that increased carbon levels confers from magical "nutrients" to plants is far-fetched at best.

Re:Twisted Conclusion

[by Anonymous Coward]

"Furthurmore, last time I checked, Carbon was not exactly a limiting factor in plant growth. I've seen plants die from pH, salt poisoning, incorrect water levels, heat, cold, you name it. However, I don't think I've ever seen a plant suffer from lack of CO2..."

CO2 IS a limiting factor in plant growth. The current concentration, around 350 ppm, is actually at the lowest end for plant survival. Dendrochronologists have to factor in extra growth caused by the recent CO2 blip into their calculations. Why do you think polytunnel farmers inject extra CO2 into their tunnels?

To people who know about these things, this is a non-story.

If you don't know what you're talking about, please don't post on slashdot as if you do.....

! "Scientists"

[0WaitState (231806)]

The posting headline is misleading: the article author has written a book attempting to debunk global warming. This is not a scientific consensus, but one man pushing a contrary position. Check it out, and make your own evaluation:

The Deniers [nationalreview.com]

Lawrence Solomon is author of a new book from the new Richard Vigilante Books. The book is The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud *And those who are too fearful to do so. And that about tells you everything you need to know. In The Deniers, Solomon focuses on profiling the scientists Al Gore conveniently doesn't engage. In the run-up to the hottest holiday of the year, Earth Day, he took questions from National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez.

Author with an Agenda

[Knutsi (959723)]

First of all, note that the auhtor here does have an agenda. From the end of the article:

"Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers"

The book [amazon.com] he wrote does make a clear statement about how he feels about the current debate.

In any event, none can say that this development is linear. Beyond a certain point, maybe the balance between heating caused by CO2 and the increased plant consumption looks very different, and turns around. The complexity of these systems are not to be underestimated, and reading this article as "Some more CO2 might be good for us!", or at least reading it as a excuse not to do anything (like all those SUV owner might), would be bad.

Re:The cycle....

[mrbluze (1034940)]

More CO2 => increased temperatures => more greenery => more CO2 absorption => decreased temperatures?

Yeah, seriously, I think I'm gonna go back to believing in horoscopes.

Re:The cycle....

[MrMr (219533)]

And after CO2 levels have decreased, there may be mass extinctions.
Perhaps mass extinction is the preferred process to upgrade the biopshere to cope with new conditions?

Re:The cycle....

[MrMr (219533)]

You think the universe would be even remotely interesting without at least one really evil species?
We could be the Vogons of the galaxy. I'd like the shouting part.

Re:The cycle....

[Yetihehe (971185)]

I will write poetry, I'm really bad at this :D "Ode to extinctions: O thy, which is extinct, Don't ever come back, Because for you the race is over, Use burma shave".

Re:Yeah and then there are "dead zones"

[The Master Control P (655590)]

The situation you describe looks like a new equilibrium that's seperated from the existing ones by a kinetic barrier; Before algae grazers can move in, the bloom peaks, dies, and creates a dead zone phenomenon.

Re:Yeah and then there are "dead zones"

[Entropy2016 (751922)]

Yes I know the story: nutrients create algae blooms which then die and decay thereby robbing the ocean of oxygen.

No, you don't know the story. That's only part of it.
In addition to losing oxygen, the water becomes more turbid,and the proportions of species in the community is damaged.
Some of these algal/cyanobacteria blooms are actually toxic to plants & animals.

Why don't the smaller, rapidly-reproducing zooplankton take up the gauntlet?

Because they suffocate near the alleged food source. That of course assumes the food source firstly isn't toxic to them.
Ever seen a dead mouse in a mouse-trap? Food surrounded by lethal conditions is hardly food.

Why don't the smaller, rapidly-reproducing zooplankton take up the gauntlet?

Virtually all of the articles I've read on hypoxic waters and dead zones fail to address this paradox. I've only read one paper that
mentioned even an _hypothesis_ of how algae grazers fail to flourish -- referring to algae species that protect themselves with toxins.
But this doesn't ring true: Why would the most pioneering of algae species be the most protective of themselves when there is so much
opportunity to evolve optimizations for growth rather than defense against grazers?

The evolution of life doesn't care about optimizations for growth. Evolution does not seek to form a more perfect creature. Either the environment kills it before it reproduces or it doesn't. Their goal is survival, not being efficient at it. An organism's life can be amazingly cruel and miserable, yet still perfectly succeed in this function. Optimizations and perfections aren't on the agenda unless the consequence of not adopting such things is extinction.

It's very simple, unthinking, and without any sort of goal orientation save for existing. If the algae can exist successfully without such optimizations, they will continue to do so. Kinda like how massive numbers of people will continue to buy large inefficient vehicles until gas gets expensive. They could have used optimized & efficient vehicles, but they don't unless they perceive it to be absolutely necessary to get by.

Re:The pertinent question...

[The Master Control P (655590)]

Warmer temperatures induce melting of arctic and greenland icesheets. If this continues far enough, it may reduce the salinity of the north Atlantic to the point that the oceanic conveyor shuts down; If this happens, Europe freezes. There is evidence that this is already in progress; Measurements have indicated that the columns of cold, dense saltwater from the surface that need to sink to the ocean floor are not getting as far down as they should.

Increasing temperatures over equatorial oceans drive increased humidity and increased storm formation, resulting in an increased number of more powerful hurricanes/typhoons/cyclones. Rising humidity in tropical regions is also extending the range of tropical disease-carrying insects northwards.

The addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is altering the equilibrium acidity of the oceans, as more of it dissolves into top layers of the ocean and forms carbonic acid. This makes it more difficult for diatoms to grow their carbonate-based bodies. If the acidity increases sufficiently, it could cause diatom populations to crash as their bodies dissovle and effectively nuke the entire oceanic ecosystem from the bottom floor.

Underneath the permafrost in much of the north are unimaginably massive deposits of methane calthrates, consisting of a crystal of methane and water molecules that is only thermodynamically stable at low temperatures and high pressures. If rising temperatures induce a massive decomposition (blowout) of calthrates, the result would be catastrophic beyond measure; Methane has thousands of times the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide, and there are billions of tons of it locked up in calthrates.

There is a now famous picture, showing an image of a Himalayan ice pack taken circa 1910 alongside an image taken today; The ice has all but disappeared. If reduced snow accumulation and increased melting takes place, many borderline parts of the world will be tipped into being outright deserts due to reduced river flow. Guess what feeds the world's rivers?

So... would you like to know more?