From the NY Times Green blog we learn that a study published in the journal Science shows that climate change has caused a noticeable reduction in global plant growth
“Earth has done an ecological about-face,” a NASA statement said. “Global plant productivity that once flourished under warming temperatures and a lengthened growing season is now on the decline, struck by the stress of drought.”
Research over the past two decades had shown terrestrial plant growth on the rise, with higher temperatures and longer growing seasons linked to a 6 percent increase in global plant productivity from 1982 to 1999. Between 2000 and 2009, terrestrial plant growth declined by 1 percent.
“This is a pretty serious warning that warmer temperatures are not going to endlessly improve plant growth,” Steven Running, a biologist at the University of Montana in Missoula and co-author of the report, said in the NASA statement.
One of the arguments that the ’skeptics’ have routinely trotted out is that a warmer Earth will inevitably mean greater harvests.
Looks like they’re wrong. Again.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Earl 08.24.10 at 1:49 pm
“One of the arguments that the ’skeptics’ have routinely trotted out is that a warmer Earth will inevitably mean greater harvests.” Hum… it sounds like the nervous screeching of Chicken Little is balanced out by the optimistic expectations of Pollyanna. Meantime back at the barnyard only a few residents of the coop are paying any attention to the screeching of Chicken Little, whose credibility plummeted when earlier reports of imminent sky fall were called into question by the embarrassing release of compromising coop talks.
Richard 08.24.10 at 2:15 pm
You mean those coop talks that weren’t compromising at all?
Earl 08.24.10 at 4:03 pm
The hens protest to much, methinks. ( Climategate).
Richard 08.24.10 at 4:05 pm
Not protesting at all. Just saying. 3 independent reviews. 3 exonerations. Old news.
Earl 08.24.10 at 7:13 pm
All the explanations offered to excuse all the manipulation and all the falsification of data and conclusions is no more than “words without thoughts.”
Richard 08.24.10 at 9:45 pm
Some people were never going to be convinced no matter how many enquiries were held. I suppose you were one of them.
But you’re wrong.
Earl 08.24.10 at 11:28 pm
In the face of what can at length be read, the explanations offered are not persuasive. It requires more than naive good will to trust the credibility of those who are so invested in a particular outcome. Their demonstrated integrity is to casually associated with the truth. It maybe that honest work will be forthcoming, but that remains to be seen. Regardless, those who choose may if they wish trust, but verify!