"We all know that in the process of photo-synthesis, plants and trees need carbon-dioxide (CO2) in order to grow.
What struck me were the things William Happer said about more CO2 in the air CAUSING more greening. (video at the link above)
To quote from the report that he referred to: ‘Increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) have helped boost green foliage across the world’s arid regions over the past 30 years through a process called CO2 fertilisation, according to CSIRO research.
In findings based on satellite observations, CSIRO, in collaboration with the Australian National University (ANU), found that this CO2 fertilisation correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982-2010
across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa, according to CSIRO research scientist, Dr Randall Donohue.’
NASA VEGETATION INDEX:
Hence, the observed greening of the desert areas.
It seems CO2 is our dung in the air: “more CO2?
Yes, please!”
In a more recent study it appears that some of the extra greening of earth is also linked to human activities….:
‘Taken all together, the greening of the planet over the last two decades
represents an increase in leaf area on plants and trees equivalent to the area covered by all the Amazon rain forests.
There are now more than two million square miles of extra green leaf area per year, compared to the early 2000s – a 5% increase.’
“China and India account for one-third of the greening, but contain only 9% of the planet’s land area covered in vegetation
– a surprising finding, considering the general notion of land degradation in populous countries from overexploitation,”
said Chi Chen of the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, in Massachusetts, and lead author of the study.”
... We all want more lawns and more trees in our towns and in our own backyards.
Planting of trees is what we now teach all our children, to absorb our CO2 emissions.
This is happening everywhere in the world now.
That is not a bad thing.
Also, for more people to live, we need bigger crops.
...Nothing al all wrong with all of that!
But what does all of this extra greening do to local temperature? A
first indication came to me from reading a report from John Christy, published in 2006.
I show the conclusion of the report:
‘Our results indicate that the central San Joaquin Valley has experienced a significant rise of minimum temperatures (∼3°C in JJA and SON), a rise that is not detectable in the adjacent Sierra Nevada.
Our working hypothesis is that the rapid valley warming is caused by the massive growth in irrigated agriculture.
Such human engineering of the environment has changed a high-albedo desert into a darker, moister, vegetated plain, thus altering the surface energy balance in a way we suggest has created the results found in this study.’ "
