Global Warming...Fact or Fiction?

[Blue]

It will be interesting, going by this the melting will need to get a move on.

Daily Arctic Sea Ice Maps

VERY good link speedy! Puts that whole argument to bed. To those that fear the ice caps melting, just wait till september, they'll be back! Check every month since '79. Looks like a cycle to me!

[Speedy]

New research suggesting that deserts could be a previously unknown carbon sink.

News of the Week
ECOSYSTEMS:
Have Desert Researchers Discovered a Hidden Loop in the
Carbon Cycle?
Richard Stone
URUMQI, CHINA--When Li Yan began measuring
carbon dioxide (CO2) in western China's
Gubantonggut Desert in 2005, he thought his
equipment had malfunctioned. Li, plant
ecophysiologist with the Chinese Academy of
Sciences'Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and
Geography in Urumqi, discovered that his plot was
soaking up CO2 at night. His team ruled out the sparse
vegetation as the CO2 sink. Li came to a surprising
conclusion: The alkaline soil of Gubantonggut is
socking away large quantities of CO2 in an inorganic
form. A CO2-gulping desert in a remote corner of
China may not be an isolated phenomenon. Halfway around the world, researchers have
found that Nevada's Mojave Desert, square meter for square meter, absorbs about the
same amount of CO2 as some temperate forests. The two sets of findings suggest that
deserts are unsung players in the global carbon cycle. "Deserts are a larger sink for
carbon dioxide than had previously been assumed," says Lynn Fenstermaker, a remote
sensing ecologist at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Las Vegas, Nevada, and a coauthor
of a paper on the Mojave findings published online last April in Global Change
Biology.
The effect could be huge: About 35% of Earth's land surface, or 5.2 billion hectares, is
desert and semiarid ecosystems. If the Mojave readings represent an average CO2 uptake,
then deserts and semiarid regions may be absorbing up to 5.2 billion tons of carbon a
year--roughly half the amount emitted globally by burning fossil fuels, says John "Jay"
Arnone, an ecologist in DRI's Reno lab and a co-author of the Mojave paper. But others
point out that CO2 fluxes are notoriously difficult to measure and that it is necessary to
take readings in other arid and semiarid regions to determine whether the Mojave and
Gubantonggut findings are representative or anomalous.

For now, some experts doubt that the world's most barren ecosystems are the longsought
missing carbon sink. "I'd be hugely surprised if this were the missing sink. If deserts are
taking up a lot of carbon, it ought to be obvious," says William Schlesinger, a
biogeochemist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, who
in the 1980s was among the first to examine carbon flux in deserts. Nevertheless, he says,
both sets of findings are intriguing and "must be followed up."
Scientists have long struggled to balance Earth's carbon books. While atmospheric CO2
levels are rising rapidly, our planet absorbs more CO2 than can be accounted for.
Researchers have searched high and low for this missing sink. It doesn't appear to be the
oceans or forests--although the capacity of boreal forests to absorb CO2 was long
underestimated. Deserts might be the least likely candidate. "You would think that
seemingly lifeless places must be carbon neutral, or carbon sources," says Mojave coauthor
Georg Wohlfahrt, an ecologist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.
About 20 kilometers north of Urumqi, clusters of shanties are huddled next to fields of
hops, cotton, and grapes. Soon after the Communist victory over the Nationalists in 1949,
soldiers released from active duty were dispatched across rural China, including vast
Xinjiang Province, to farm the land. At the edge of the sprawling "222" soldier farm,
which is home to hundreds of families, oasis fields end where the Gubantonggut begins.
The Fukang Station of Desert Ecology, which Li directs, is situated at this transition
between ecosystems.
In recent years, average precipitation has increased in the Gubantonggut, and the
dominant Tamarix shrubs are thriving. Li set out to measure the difference in CO2
absorption between oasis and desert soil. An automated flux chamber measured CO2
depletion a few centimeters above the soil in 24-hour intervals on select days in the
growing season (from May to October) in 2005 and in 2006. The desert readings ranged
from 62 to 622 grams of carbon per square meter per year. Li assumed that Tamarix and a
biotic crust of lichen, moss, and cyanobacteria up to 5 centimeters thick are responsible
for part of the uptake. To rule out an organic process in the soil, Li's team put several
kilograms in a pressure steam chamber to kill off any life forms and enzymes. CO2
absorption held steady, according to their report, posted online earlier this year in
Environmental Geology.
"The sterilization treatment was impressive," says biogeochemist Pieter Tans, a climate
change expert with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in
Boulder, Colorado. "They may have found a significant effect, previously neglected, but I
would like to see more evidence." Indeed, the high end of the Urumqi CO2 flux estimates
are off the charts. "That's more carbon uptake than our fastest growing southern forests.
It's a huge number. I find it extremely hard to believe," says Schlesinger, who nonetheless
says the Chinese team's methodology looks
sound.
At first, Li was flummoxed. Then, he says, he realized that deserts are "like a dry ocean."
The pH of oceans is falling gradually as they absorb CO2, forming carbonic acid. "I
thought, 'Why wouldn't this also happen in the soil?' " Whereas the ocean has a single
surface for gas exchange, Li says, soil is a porous medium with a huge reactive surface
area. One question, Tans notes, is why the desert soils would remain alkaline as they
absorb CO2. Li suggests that ongoing salinization drives pH in the opposite direction,
allowing for continual CO2 absorption. But where the carbon goes--whether it is stowed
largely as calcium carbonate or other salts--is unknown, Li says. Schlesinger too is
stumped: "It takes a long time for carbonate to build up in the soil," he says. At the
apparent rate of absorption in China, he says, "we'd be up to our ankles in carbon."
One possibility, DRI soil chemist Giles Marion speculates, is that at night, CO2 reacts
with moisture in the soil and perhaps with dew to form carbonic acid, which dissolves
calcium carbonate--a reaction that warmer temperatures would drive in reverse, releasing
the CO2 again during the day. (Unlike most minerals, carbonates become more soluble at
lower temperatures.) In that case, Marion says, Li's nighttime absorption would tell only
half the story: "I would expect that over a year, there would be no significant increase in
soil storage due to this process," he says, as the dynamic of carbon sequestration in the
soil would vary from season to season. Li agrees that this scenario is plausible but notes
that his daytime measurements of CO2 flux did not negate the nighttime uptake.
In any case, other researchers say, absorption alone cannot explain the substantial uptake
in the Mojave. Wohlfahrt and his colleagues measured CO2 flux above the loamy sands
of the Nevada Test Site, where the United States once tested its nuclear arsenal. From
March 2005 to February 2007, the desert biome absorbed on average roughly 100 grams
of carbon per square meter per year--comparable to temperate forests and grassland
ecosystems--the team reported in its Global Change Biology paper.
Three processes are probably involved in CO2 absorption, Wohlfahrt says: biotic crusts,
alkaline soils, and expanded shrub cover due to increased average precipitation. "We
currently do not have the data to say where exactly the carbon is going," he says. Like the
Urumqi team, Wohlfahrt and his colleagues observed CO2 absorption at night that cannot
be attributed to photosynthesis. "I hope we can corroborate the Chinese findings in the
Mojave," he says. Arnone and others, however, believe that carbon storage in soil is
minimal.
Wohlfahrt suspects biotic crusts play a key role. "People have almost completely
neglected what's going on with the crusts," he says. Others are not so sure. "I'm mystified
by the Mojave work. There is no way that all the CO2 absorption observed in these
studies is due to biological crusts, as there are not enough of them active long enough to
account for such a large sink," says Jayne Belnap of the U.S. Geological Survey's
Canyonlands Research Station in Moab, Utah. She and her colleagues have studied
carbon uptake in the southern Utah desert, which has similar crust species. "We do not
see any such results," she says.
Provided the surprising CO2 sink in the deserts is not a mirage, it may yet prove
ephemeral. "We don't want to say that these ecosystems will continue to gain carbon at
this rate forever," Wohlfahrt says. The unexpected CO2 absorption may be due to a
recent uptick in precipitation in many deserts that has fueled a visible surge in vegetation.
If average annual rainfall levels in those deserts were to abate, that could release the
stored carbon and lead to a more rapid buildup of atmospheric CO2--and possibly
accelerate global warming.

http://www.ecostudies.org/press/Schl..._June_2008.pdf

[gunnut]

Maybe, just maybe, the science is NOT settled.

Maybe, just maybe, the debate is NOT ovah!

Maybe we are overestimating our carbon output.

Maybe the earth is pulling in these carbon and re-synthesizing them back into oil

Bottomline, we don't know jack about the earth to say we are or we are not changing "the climate."

[dalem]

Only a fool could still think Carbon is an issue as regards climate.

-dale

[Blue]

Only an arrogant fool (Al Gore) would presume to know about the Earth, the Heavens and all in between. Will the jury ever be in? Life without learning would be, well, boring as hell. We know just about Jack squat about our world so far. We haven't even explored all of this planet yet! The truth will be stranger than the fiction my friends.

Speedy, you are doing some really good posts here. Good job! They are very informative(to those of us that listen).;)

[Speedy]

Well so much for all the scaremongering of no sea ice in the arctic this year.

Daily Arctic Sea Ice Maps

[Parihaka]

Well so much for all the scaremongering of no sea ice in the arctic this year.

Daily Arctic Sea Ice Maps

I wonder if Canada will charge that tosser in the kayak trying to paddle all the way to the north pole with the costs of his rescue.

[sun]

Why floods in Bangladesh is so fierce?

Can any one explain me why floods in Bangladesh is getting worse and worse by years. Even in India, this year very worst flood affected state of Bihar and Assam? What is causing ice melting in himalaya's so fast?

Main question, why is so much land is being claimed by sea in the river ganges delta.
The sunderban forest is very dense forest, what caused the soil erosion there, is that just the sand washed away or the water level rose?

[gunnut]

Can any one explain me why floods in Bangladesh is getting worse and worse by years. Even in India, this year very worst flood affected state of Bihar and Assam? What is causing ice melting in himalaya's so fast?

Main question, why is so much land is being claimed by sea in the river ganges delta.
The sunderban forest is very dense forest, what caused the soil erosion there, is that just the sand washed away or the water level rose?

Were you here 1000 years ago with 24 hour video coverage of densely populated flood plains?

That's the reason floods are getting worse. More people living in flood prone regions and 24/7 TV coverage.

Earth has been through this before. We weren't here to watch it is all.

[JamesCash]

Dutch scientists did some research on climate change and the dutch government is now basing a very long term plan spending 1,5 bill. each year.
Some of the changes important to Dutch watersafety:

-Longer periods of drought.
Lack of freshwater.

-Longer periods of sustained rain.
Overflowing rivers.

-Rising of sea level by melting ice and expansion of water.
50 cm by 2050 taking the relative descent of Dutch soil in account. This radically increases the chance of overflowing in the economical centre with a population of 6 million.

Whether or not carbon emmissions caused it, the policymakers here are taking climate change very seriously. The Netherlands is a fairly rich country, I'm dreading what will happen to poor nations with people living in deltas.

[dalem]

The Netherlands is a fairly rich country, I'm dreading what will happen to poor nations with people living in deltas.

Don't worry, they'll just move to the Netherlands.

-dale

[Donnie]

if there is "global warming" and melting ice makes water claim land, wouldnt people just gravitate to previously unihabitable land? siberia might be nice, alaska might be the new carolinas, and hell, pennsylvania might become the new florida, score *going out to buy some suntan lotion.

[sun]

Were you here 1000 years ago with 24 hour video coverage of densely populated flood plains?

That's the reason floods are getting worse. More people living in flood prone regions and 24/7 TV coverage.

Earth has been through this before. We weren't here to watch it is all.

You have a point there.

Lets not compare 1000 years back, lets compare the difference in flood levels 10 years back and now.

[gunnut]

You have a point there.

Lets not compare 1000 years back, lets compare the difference in flood levels 10 years back and now.

Sure. But then you suffer the problem of not having enough samples over a sufficient lapse in time to determine the earth's condition. It's like if I take your pulse over 2 beats to determine what the condition of your heart is.

I can easily say that New Orleans hasn't been hit by a hurricane in the 2 years following Katrina so the earth must be getting better.

[JamesCash]

if there is "global warming" and melting ice makes water claim land, wouldnt people just gravitate to previously unihabitable land? siberia might be nice, alaska might be the new carolinas, and hell, pennsylvania might become the new florida, score *going out to buy some suntan lotion.

Yeah, it's the floods that are more worrying. Quite alot of people live in lower coastal areas.