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23-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Leaves Offer New Insight Into Global Warming (upi.com) 37

Posted by EditorDavid from the branching-out dept.
UPI reports: The links between rising carbon dioxide levels, global warming and greening trends have been confirmed by fossilized leaves from a 23 million-year-old forest... Scientists previously postulated that ancient increases in atmospheric CO2 during the early Miocene allowed plants to perform photosynthesis more efficiently. But the latest research, published Thursday in the journal Climate of the Past, is the first to confirm the link between CO2 and greening in the fossil record...

Lab experiments have shown increases in CO2 can boost photosynthesis, and recent satellite surveys suggest rising CO2 levels are responsible for greening patterns across the planet, including Arctic and drylands ecosystems. The latest research suggests that greening trends are likely to continue as CO2 levels approach those recorded during ancient period of warming... According to the new study, increases in photosynthesis rates won't be able to keep up with current rates of human-caused carbon emissions. In addition, previous studies suggest increases in rates of photosynthesis can prevent staple crops from absorbing calcium, iron, zinc and other minerals important for human health....

By comparing the fossilized leaf structures, including microscopic veins, stomata and pores, to those of modern leaves, researchers designed a model to more accurately predict CO2 levels... "It all fits together, it all makes sense," said study co-author William D'Andrea, a paleoclimate scientist at Lamont-Doherty. "This should give us more confidence about how temperatures will change with CO2 levels."
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23-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Leaves Offer New Insight Into Global Warming More

23-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Leaves Offer New Insight Into Global Warming

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  • The temperatures will go up. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    And then we'll all die.

  • but not for animals who eat them
    or animals that eat animals who eat them

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Not good for all plants. While plants *as a whole* may photosynthesize more, plant species that are less carbon-limited will be outcompeted by species that are more carbon-limited.

      Over long, evolutionary time periods there is no particular reason to favor one level of CO2 over another. But over the timespan of a human lifetime or even a civilization a sudden change is disruptive.

      • Over long, evolutionary time periods there is no particular reason to favor one level of CO2 over another. But over the timespan of a human lifetime or even a civilization a sudden change is disruptive.

        Civilization is pretty disruptive in its own right.

  • FTS: "increases in atmospheric CO2 during the early Miocene allowed plants to perform photosynthesis more efficiently"

    Seems to me this would cause less efficiency. After all, when you have an excess of a resource you don't need to be efficient.

    • This is a kinetic reaction. If the concentration of reactants is higher, the rate of production is higher.
  • Order a new lawnmower for your grass now!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The crazy thing to me about this story is that the stomata are observable in the fossils. I didn't realize fossils could have such microscopic detail.
    • Incomparable CO2 levels. What greenhouses use seems to be a level that was last seen in nature at least two hundred million years ago.

    • Greenhouse agriculture producers have been using increased CO2 to promote rapid growth for decades.

      As have new-agers. (For those who didn't live through that era, think "a subset of the hippies heavy on the mystic-trystic stuff".)

      There was this big craze about how spending some time each talking to your houseplants, complementing and encoruaging them, made them healthier.

      New ager thinks some spiritual magic is going on and is reinforced in his/her beliefs.

      Plant "thinks": "CARBON DIOXIDE! I can make a WHO

      • I agree with you about the increase in plant growth possible from "talking" to plants maybe being CO2...

        But it would be interesting to see if vibrations (from sound waves) have any effect on plant growth. Wild plants are used to being moved around by breezes, it would be interesting to study if micro motion as from sounds helps improve a plants health in any noticeable way.

    • Greenhouse agriculture producers have been using increased CO2 to promote rapid growth for decades.

      -jcr

      And how many degrees of global heating happened in those greenhouses? Hmm? Oh, you missed the Drought and Heat Wave effects? Figures

  • crisis averted (Score:4, Funny)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Sunday August 23, 2020 @01:51PM (#60432691)
    There you have it folks. It's been fake news all along, just like "they" said. We can keep stomping the accelerator on our Ford-1050s because Mother Nature will simply "absorb all the CO2". Heck, we're doing the ecosystem a favor!

    This effect will only kick in AFTER the poles are melted, the equator of the planet is almost uninhabitable, every coastal city has been leveled by megastorms, every breadbasket region on the planet has been wrecked, most people have migrated to the poles of the planet, the geopolitical map is completely unrecognizable, the ocean is acidified, the corals are gone, most animals larger than a shrew are extinct. Except for the mosquitos. Those are everywhere and they're now the size of your thumb. But, hey, let's keep dumping in that CO2.

    This is evolution at work, people. Watch what happens when a species overgrows its habitat in an uncontrolled manner. This isn't rocket science. Most people who've kept fish tanks for more than a few years knows exactly what I'm talking about. Once it's overloaded and out of control, it's NOT pretty for the animals at the top of the food chain.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      Isn't that good for the AGW believers? More death, less humans, less emissions, good for the planet. In the end it will regulate itself out and any free evolutionary system will adapt accordingly.

  • The new KT boundary layer (Score:3)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Sunday August 23, 2020 @02:30PM (#60432815)

    Millions of years from now, archaeologists excavating landfills will find a thin layer of masks and other PPE and assign a name to it.

    • Millions of years from now, archaeologists excavating landfills will find a thin layer of masks and other PPE and assign a name to it.

      How about the covidpause?

  • And I suppose that they are a lovely green as well asproducing CO2 and O2. What do you get when you build one theory on top of another theory on top of another theory that was all built only on a hypothesis? This article. lol

  • Why do you think they call it a greenhouse gas?
    Because they literally pump it into greenhouses to make the plants grow bigger!

    (And also because it turns Earth into a greenhouse too.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jbengt ( 874751 )
      No, it's because it has the same effect as the glass in a greenhouse - it lets most of the sunlight in, but blocks a large part of the infrared that would otherwise get out.

  • So until now it was all a guess about CO2 in the past and there wasn't complete confidence in future predictions ... ?

    The problem I have with that is that up until now I thought the link with CO2 was incontravertably established and there seemed to be abundant confidence in climate predictions. BUT that wasn't actually true.

    So why should I believe now? What else am I going to find out later that wasn't actually known but was put forward as being known for the purposes of motivating policy?

    If you have to u

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