Satellites See That Climate Change Has Caused A Greener Earth

http://www.scifitoday.com/story/2003/6/5/152458/6748

Satellites See That Climate Change Has Caused A Greener Earth By rickyjames, Section News Posted on Thu Jun 5th, 2003 at 03:24:58 PM EST

Between 1982 and 1999, Earths's climate became warmer, wetter, and sunnier in many parts of the world. As the climate changed plants found it easier to grow, producing changes that could be seen by satellites. These satellite observations of 'Net Primary Productivity' (NPP) reveal the seasonal and yearly cycles of Earth's vegetation. NPP is the difference between the CO2 absorbed by plants during photosynthesis, and CO2 lost by plants during respiration. NPP is the foundation for food, fiber and fuel derived from plants, without which life on Earth could not exist. Humans appropriate approximately 50 percent of global NPP. NPP globally increased on average by 6% from 1982 to 1999; the Earth's carbon dioxide levels increased 9% during this time.

Researcher Ramakrishna Nemani and colleagues present in this week's Science a global map of the NPP of plants from climate and satellite data of vegetation greenness and solar radiation absorption. Ecosystems in tropical zones and in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere accounted for 80 percent of the increase. NPP increased significantly over 25 percent of the global vegetated area, but decreased over seven percent of the area. This illustrates how plants respond differently depending on regional climatic conditions.

'Our study proposes climatic changes as the leading cause for the increases in plant growth over the last two decades, with lesser contribution from carbon dioxide fertilization and forest re-growth,' said Nemani. No one knows whether these positive impacts are due to short-term climate cycles, or longer-term global climate changes. Also, a 36 percent increase in global population, from 4.45 billion in 1980 to 6.08 billion in 2000, overshadows the increases in plant growth.

NASA satellites continue to measure global changes in NPP and will provide scientists with a strong platform for understanding changes in Earth's systems in years and decades to come. The measurements are made using the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers on NOAA TIROS-N satellites.

Is that the same climate change you claim hasn't happened?

Can't you read? I've been posting about the benefits of CO2 for plants for a long time.

Yes, so? It only works up to a point, though, as controlled experiments (look up what those are) have shown.

It's possible 'greenhouse' has, I can't keep track of everything he posts. Who you are I have no idea, mr 'convection'.

Convection thing, 'you' haven't been posting for a long time. This is your first using that name, as far as I can tell.

Unless the Convection will reverse flow, going against it's nature and admit to being the man/gerbil named Kevin? Would that be a forced convection??

It kind of defeats the ad hominem approach, doesn't it? Be honest. Environmentalism is an 'ad hominem' ideology. It is 'against man'.

How do anti-environmentalists manage to get things so consistently