Returning to this thread, another bit of bad news has come across the gunwale from Michael Le Page on NewScientist (28 April 2018, paywall):
NO ONE expected this. In the longest-running experiment of its kind, plants that were supposed to thrive in higher carbon dioxide levels have instead done less well.
The finding suggests plants won’t take up as much CO2 in the future as climate models assume – potentially leading to greater warming in the long term.
“To get this result is startling,” says Peter Reich at the University of Minnesota in St Paul, whose team ran a 20-year study of how high CO2 levels affect grasslands. This study shows we must be cautious when predicting how complex systems behave, he says. “There could be surprises.”
So much for those who think CO2 levels will be good for vegetation on their own. While more land may become available for certain vegetation, sometimes at the expense of others, if the plants themselves have poor uptake then that vague theory just isn’t going to work out, is it?
It’s worth noting that this is a single study’s results, and the study ran for more than a decade. It could be an outlier – but to count on that is foolishness in the face of all the other scientific evidence concerning climate change.
And speaking of CO2 levels, how’s the Mauna Loa NOAA measurement station doing these days?
Much the same – trending upwards.
