Minimum Atmospheric CO2 percentage for plant life!

[isaac3d2]

When I was at school, (admittedly, quite a while ago, though definitley after the Jurassic Period), I recall being taught that the level of CO2 was around 330 ppm. Now its 420+ ppm. That's quite a hike in one human (at least, I claim so) lifetime. That the levels of CO2 (and methane, for that matter) have been much higher in the distant past, perhaps as high as 4000ppm, is not an excuse for us to keep releasing ever more fossil CO2 in to the atmosphere. Whilst 4000ppm CO2 may be good for some organisms it would not be good for all and it would certainly wipe out human "civilisation". I doubt the planet will go the way of venus and become a cooking pot planet as we are too far from the sun. However, the life that survives if we continue to burn fossil fuels willy nilly will be different from the world we have today. Perhaps, a long time after the human race has made itself extinct (along with a good proportion of currently existing species), CO2 might return to a level of between 300 and 400 ppm and all will be rosie again (assuming roses are one of the species which do survive). Most likely some species of insects will survive. Bacteria will, of course, survive. And so, if we are not careful over the next few decades, the meek will most certainly inherit the earth but our great great great etc.. grandchildren will not!
The real question of today is not how do we keep inflation to 2% per annum, but how do we provide a future for all those little darlings who don't yet exist?

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Back on track, it is referred to as "greening", but the climate catastrophe crowd try not to talk about it, because it is actually a good thing in terms of carbon sink, balancing the atmosphere etc, so on and so forth. It's almost as though systems had evolved to take advantage of change.

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/co2-is-making-earth-greenerfor-now/

"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.
An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States."

Obviously, despite this good news, we are all going to die of cataclysmic anthropogenic climate change catastrophe, but at least we wont be hungry. Much.

 

[Jacob]

Back on track, it is referred to as "greening", but the climate catastrophe crowd try not to talk about it,

They talk about it all the time! Maybe you didn't notice but your link is to a Nasa page - one of the main media sources for information on the climate crisis.

because it is actually a good thing in terms of carbon sink, balancing the atmosphere etc, so on and so forth. It's almost as though systems had evolved to take advantage of change.

Well spotted! It's known popularly as the Gaia Hypothesis
In fact it is central to the whole subject of Ecology

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/co2-is-making-earth-greenerfor-now/

"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.
An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States."

Obviously, despite this good news, we are all going to die of cataclysmic anthropogenic climate change catastrophe, but at least we wont be hungry. Much.

Interesting seeing an apparently desperate sceptic slowly coming to terms with the science. Keep it up!

 

[Croolis]

Back on track, it is referred to as "greening", but the climate catastrophe crowd try not to talk about it, because it is actually a good thing in terms of carbon sink, balancing the atmosphere etc, so on and so forth. It's almost as though systems had evolved to take advantage of change.

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/co2-is-making-earth-greenerfor-now/

"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.
An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States."

Obviously, despite this good news, we are all going to die of cataclysmic anthropogenic climate change catastrophe, but at least we wont be hungry. Much.

If you cherry pick one effect and say it's good, while ignoring all others just to try and put a positive spin on things, your approach is wrong. Running global climate experiments is a bad idea.

Also systems don't "evolve". What sort of nonsense is that as a statement. Dynamism occurs, no more, no less. Action, reaction. Things in nature don't "balance out", as people like to erroneously state. There is no balance in earth sciences, only dynamism. States occur, then go away.

 

[Jacob]

If you cherry pick one effect and say it's good, while ignoring all others just to try and put a positive spin on things, your approach is wrong. Running global climate experiments is a bad idea.

Also systems don't "evolve". What sort of nonsense is that as a statement. Dynamism occurs, no more, no less. Action, reaction. Things in nature don't "balance out", as people like to erroneously state. There is no balance in earth sciences, only dynamism. States occur, then go away.

Environments do evolve/adapt/change. They can't resist! Extremely quickly where life is involved, more slowly where not. There are no changes on the face of Mars over long periods, but Earth changes rapidly, in our lifetimes even.
In the end everything stops, due to entropy.

 

[SammyQ]

If you cherry pick one effect and say it's good, while ignoring all others just to try and put a positive spin on things, your approach is wrong. Running global climate experiments is a bad idea.

Also systems don't "evolve". What sort of nonsense is that as a statement. Dynamism occurs, no more, no less. Action, reaction. Things in nature don't "balance out", as people like to erroneously state. There is no balance in earth sciences, only dynamism. States occur, then go away.

Croolis, you are being very rigid in your use of English. My uni.prof was a prominent, respected Ecologist and he certainly would, without hesitating, have said "ecosystems evolve". He was referring to them changing during their passage from bare terrain to climax community, and their changing species lists as they became disrupted by earth forces, or manipulated by Man.
"Evolution" is not a term limited to Animalia or Plantae.
Secondly, things in Nature emphatically do " balance out". Regard a climax community: its numbers of any species is variable, even oscillate cyclically, but largely remain the same. You can see this very clearly from the work of Charlie Krebs and others forward to the present day. Do your research properly.
If, as you stridently opinionate: "States occur, then go away" how the hell do you explain dinosaurs lasting 150 million years and more? How do you account for thick coal seams? That much vegetation, now compressed and earth- heated into coal, needed eons of STABILITY to accumulate. The cliffs of Dover? That many skeletons of marine fauna, again compressed and heated into limestone, now millions of tonnes, it didn't happen "dynamically" (implication: quickly/in a few months or years). No way José.
Sweeping generalisms distort, even change the meaning of, good empirical science. Please leave such pap and nonsense to the Big Orange Baby and the likes of Niggle Fartage.

 

[Jacob]

............How do you account for thick coal seams? That much vegetation, now compressed and earth- heated into coal, needed eons of STABILITY to accumulate. The cliffs of Dover? That many skeletons of marine fauna, again compressed and heated into limestone, now millions of tonnes, .......

Or the limestone around me in Derbyshire - 100s of feet thick where exposed, http://www.emgs.org.uk/archivedEMGS/files/publications/hightor.htm
even more of it underground, and coal measures, oil deposites.
Life itself forming the whole landscape on a massive geological scale.

 

[Lons]

If you cherry pick one effect and say it's good, while ignoring all others just to try and put a positive spin on things, your approach is wrong. Running global climate experiments is a bad idea.

Also systems don't "evolve". What sort of nonsense is that as a statement. Dynamism occurs, no more, no less. Action, reaction. Things in nature don't "balance out", as people like to erroneously state. There is no balance in earth sciences, only dynamism. States occur, then go away.

You shouldn't believe all you read in your sci fi books.

 

[Croolis]

If, as you stridently opinionate: "States occur, then go away" how the hell do you explain dinosaurs lasting 150 million years and more? How do you account for thick coal seams? .

Because they went away??? And did the dinosaurs not "evolve", as you'd say, across those 150 million years? Were the same dinosaurs at the beginning of your 150 million year period around at the end of your 150 million year period or had they changed? What caused them to come into being, and go away? I don't care about the timescale. It's not stable, it's just slow .

Limestone formation happens dynamically. Populations that provide materials for limestone (climax or not. I'm not great at ecology, but I know what a climax population is), evolve, change whatever, even if they keep producing calcium for limestone. And they do this because an outside influence has changed them.

White cliffs of Dover? That's another poor example. The fact that you can see the strata of the white cliffs of Dover just demonstrates again what I'm saying.

The whole universe is a series of action, reaction. Just because someone wants to promote some kind of unifying theory and attach some words to it doesn't change that. Nothing is stable. You just choose your timescale and decide that it's stable, until you move outside the period that it appears to be stable and then you can see that it wasn't.

You can argue that I shouldn't take issue with the word "evolve", I'll concede that - but that's just semantics. But to suggest anything else I've said is wthout merit is b*ll*cks, frankly. Chaos theory or whatever it is (I'm sure no expert on that) is brought into ecology all the time. And when it isn't, it should be.

Things are only cyclical and predictable until some outside influence means they are not.

I'd love to bang on about coal for hours and dig into my sh**ty memory and cite studies, papers and the rest of it but I've got to go pick up my kid.

Lons, don't believe everything you read one person claiming on the internet .

 

[Jacob]

... And did the dinosaurs not "evolve", as you'd say, across those 150 million years?

They did. Natural selection slowly selected survivors and turned them into birds! Or speedily in the case of mass extinctions, asteroids etc.
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/what-are-evograms/the-origin-of-birds/

 

[Inspector]

Seems some of mankind is already suffering from excess carbon dioxide displacing the oxygen needed for brain cell health and clear thinking. I think I'll jump in the truck and drive over to the Oxygen Bar for a few deep breaths and recharge.

Pete

 

[Croolis]

I might have been a bit hangry .

 

[selectortone]

Seems some of mankind is already suffering from excess carbon dioxide displacing the oxygen needed for brain cell health and clear thinking. I think I'll jump in the truck and drive over to the Oxygen Bar for a few deep breaths and recharge.

Pete

Good plan

 

[Jacob]

....

Limestone formation happens dynamically.

What, as distinct from passively? What do you mean?

....

White cliffs of Dover? That's another poor example.

Poor example of what?

The fact that you can see the strata of the white cliffs of Dover just demonstrates again what I'm saying.

I don't understand what you are saying.

 

[Croolis]

What, as distinct from passively? What do you mean?

dynamically
/dʌɪˈnamɪkli/

adverb

1. 1.
   in a manner characterized by constant change, activity, or progress.
   "this situation can change dynamically on the timescale of minutes"
   
   
   (hint: I'm not talking about a timescale of minutes)​

Poor example of what?

I don't understand what you are saying.

If you examine strata from chalk/limestone you see evidence of endless variation of species (both animal and vegetation, as well as grains from other formations) that are part of the substance of the rock, as you go downward. This is your dynamism. It's over geological timescales, but there is change. It's not stable. The fact that you can see the strata at Dover is obvious evidence of coastal erosion. That's change. It's not stable.

In your earlier post, talking about dinosaurs, you described change. It's not stable.

To go back to the thread. If we stick a sh*t load of carbon into the atmosphere at absurdly quick rates compared to the geological rates then yes, greening at relative rates is going to be one of the effects I expect. Not neccessarily a good thing, which is why I like using that line (it's not my own) that we're running a climate change experiment. But trying to make out it'll be a good thing is a very typical and lazy way of condoning the continuing use of fossil fuels etc etc.

"It's almost as though systems had evolved to take advantage of change". This line I don't like. It's, what's that word, anthropormorphising (ye gods did I spell that right) or something. It's like saying a magnet takes advantage of a bit of ferrous. Or that water getting under the sodding eaves of my shed through surface tension is taking advantage of the wall. Nothing evolved in that sense, nothing took advantage. Some physics happened.

I guess it's just a question of perspective.

 

[Croolis]

Oh and, while I am not terribly knowledgable about the Gaia Hypothesesis (doubtless someone will come along and bend my ear about it in a minute), I tend to think of it as utter b-o-ll-ocks. I'm afraid I knew too many crusty hippies in my yoof who used to do my head in about it.

 

[--Tom--]

The extra co2 is studied extensively even back in 2004 I was doing free air care on dioxide enrichment (FACE) experimentation. Just because it’s not on farcebook doesn’t mean real science isn’t happening.

I hate to think what my dissertation Is
Being used to argue nowadays

 

[Jacob]

Oh and, while I am not terribly knowledgable about the Gaia Hypothesesis (doubtless someone will come along and bend my ear about it in a minute), I tend to think of it as utter b-o-ll-ocks. I'm afraid I knew too many crusty hippies in my yoof who used to do my head in about it.

True that James Lovelock made it sound a bit mystical and probably very flattered by the attention from the "alternative" types of the era but the basic science is dead straight and really interesting. You should read all about it and not be put off by some old hippies.

dynamically
/dʌɪˈnamɪkli/

adverb

1. 1.
   in a manner characterized by constant change, activity, or progress.
   "this situation can change dynamically on the timescale of minutes"
   
   
   (hint: I'm not talking about a timescale of minutes)​

The word as you use it seems redundant. What's the difference between
"this situation can change dynamically on the timescale of minutes"
and
"this situation can change on the timescale of minutes"

If you examine strata from chalk/limestone you see evidence of endless variation of species (both animal and vegetation, as well as grains from other formations) that are part of the substance of the rock, as you go downward. This is your dynamism. It's over geological timescales, but there is change. It's not stable. The fact that you can see the strata at Dover is obvious evidence of coastal erosion. That's change. It's not stable.

In your earlier post, talking about dinosaurs, you described change. It's not stable.

But nobody says these things are "stable" - there is continual change, but at varying rates.

To go back to the thread. If we stick a sh*t load of carbon into the atmosphere at absurdly quick rates compared to the geological rates then yes, greening at relative rates is going to be one of the effects I expect.

yes

Not neccessarily a good thing, which is why I like using that line (it's not my own) that we're running a climate change experiment. But trying to make out it'll be a good thing is a very typical and lazy way of condoning the continuing use of fossil fuels etc etc.

I agree. The sceptics are looking for every justification. But nevertheless in general "greening" is one way of removing CO2, whether by "re-wilding" the natural way or by active intervention by ourselves

"It's almost as though systems had evolved to take advantage of change". This line I don't like.

Tough *****! It's the basis of evolution that living organisms have evolved to adapt to change, via reproduction, genetics etc. If they hadn't they wouldn't be here!

It's, what's that word, anthropormorphising (ye gods did I spell that right) or something. It's like saying a magnet takes advantage of a bit of ferrous. Or that water getting under the sodding eaves of my shed through surface tension is taking advantage of the wall. Nothing evolved in that sense, nothing took advantage. Some physics happened.

Wrong. Still physics at work but the living mechanisms which had somehow arrived in some sort of primeval soup, had hit on self-reproduction, and evolution was an inevitable outcome, in that those which had changed in anyway to survive better, would survive better and would reproduce more, if they still could!

I guess it's just a question of perspective.

More a question of confusion. Do a bit of revision! The science is all really interesting stuff!

 

[Croolis]

True that James Lovelock made it sound a bit mystical but the basic science is dead straight. You should read all about it and not be put off by some old hippies.

Young hippies. More annoying than old hippies. But really, it's not the people, it's the theory. Maybe I've not understood it properly, dunno. The chances of me going to find out are pretty low.

The word as you use it seems redundant. What's the difference between
"this situation can change dynamically on the timescale of minutes"
and
"this situation can change on the timescale of minutes"

I think it's pretty obvious what I'm saying. I can't really spell it out any more.

But nobody says these things are "stable" - there is continual change, but at varying rates.

Oh, good.

I agree. The sceptics are looking for every justification. But nevertheless in general "greening" is one way of removing CO2, whether by "re-wilding" the natural way or by active intervention by ourselves

I absolutely agree that all green stuff on the Earth is a carbon store, and that a combination of net zeroey sort of behaviour and doing the re-wilding thing would be awesome. Can't really see it happening though, sadly.

Tough *****! It's the basis of evolution that living organisms have evolved to adapt to change, via reproduction, genetics etc. If they hadn't they wouldn't be here!

No. I don't think that's described correctly. I don't like the way "adapted" is used in your sentence. A long necked horse thing didn't ultimately become a giraffe because there was a dynasty of them that were all striving for change or something, did it? It's mother was a freak with a longer neck and this freak gets to out-eat its peers because of its bonus freakishness. I'm splitting hairs maybe, but it bothers me, because I'm right. Go me. Go freaks.

Wrong. The living mechanisms which arrived in some sort of primeval soup had hit on self-reproduction - and evolution was an inevitable outcome - in that those which had changed in anyway to survive better, would survive better.

You're doing it again. They didn't "hit on" anything. There was some snazzy action/reaction occuring. Stoppit. Evolution was an inevitable outcome, yes, I'll agree with that. But primeval soup does fizzics and chemistry, it doesn't do aspiration.

More a question of confusion. Do a bit of revision!

Behave.