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I'll go ahead and post this to save her time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...s-water-amazon
It is generally acknowledged that a warming world will harm the world's forests. Higher temperatures mean water becomes more scarce, spelling death for plants – or perhaps not always.
According to a study of ancient rainforests, trees may be hardier than previously thought. Carlos Jaramillo, a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Ins ute (STRI), examined pollen from ancient plants trapped in rocks in Colombia and Venezuela. "There are many climactic models today suggesting that … if the temperature increases in the tropics by a couple of degrees, most of the forest is going to be extinct," he said. "What we found was the opposite to what we were expecting: we didn't find any extinction event [in plants] associated with the increase in temperature, we didn't find that the precipitation decreased."
In a study published todayin Science, Jaramillo and his team studied pollen grains and other biological indicators of plant life embedded in rocks formed around 56m years ago, during an abrupt period of warming called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. CO2 levels had doubled in 10,000 years and the world was warmer by 3C-5C for 200,000 years.
Contrary to expectations, he found that forests bloomed with diversity. New species of plants, including those from the passionflower and chocolate families, evolved quicker as others became extinct. The study also shows moisture levels did not decrease significantly during the warm period. "It was totally unexpected," Jaramillo said of the findings.
Klaus Winter of the STRI added: "It is remarkable that there is so much concern about the effects of greenhouse conditions on tropical forests. However, these horror scenarios probably have some validity if increased temperatures lead to more frequent or severe drought as some of the current predictions suggest."
Last year, researchers at the Met Office Hadley Centre reported that a 2C rise above pre-industrial levels, widely considered the best-case scenario, would still see 20-40% of the Amazon die off within 100 years. A 3C rise would see 75% of the forest destroyed by drought in the next century, while a 4C rise would kill 85%.
Jaramillo found that the plants he studied seemed to become more efficient with their water use when it became more scarce. But he also cautioned that future risks for the world's plant species did not end with climate change. Human action would continue to determine the fate of the world's forests, he said.
"What the fossil record is showing is that plants have already the genetic variability to cope with high temperature and high levels of CO2.
"Rather than global warming, the [trouble] for tropical plants is deforestation. The fossil record shows that, when you don't have humans around, the plants can deal with high temperatures and CO2."
I'll go ahead and post this to save her time.
Tell that to the US aspens and other trees being wiped out by beetles moving to higher (warmer) al udes.
This and all like her are shills paid by BigCarbon.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24275529/
(red trees = dead pine trees, pine needles turn that color when they fall off a tree, seeing enough of them on a tree itself indicates a dead tree)
DENVER — An outbreak of mountain pine beetles in British Columbia is doing more than destroying millions of trees: By 2020, the beetles will have done so much damage that the forest is expected to release more carbon dioxide than it absorbs, according to new research.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24275529/The outbreak has affected about 33 million acres, or about 51,562 square miles, of lodgepole pines. Bark beetles also have killed huge swaths of pines in the western United States, including about 2,300 square miles of trees in Colorado.
While we might quibble about the effects of CO2 or man made CO2, this effect is quite measurable.
These forests are not tropical forests mentioned in the OP. They also happen to be a source of jobs, and economic activity.
Those areas got *just* warm enough to be suitable for that beetle and BAM! There goes decades worth of lumber.
I shudder to think what will happen during the first fire season drought in such areas.
Anyone remember when Yellowstone burned down? I was hundreds of miles away, but could smell it, and the haze made it possible to look at the then red sun without much discomfort at high noon.
lol. It's a dude.
That's been really nasty to grizzlies up north, as nuts from whitebark are one of their primary food sources.
Some big name "religious" asshole said a couple days ago that the grizzlies should be killed because man is more important. Must be a Dominionist nut job.
I'm guessing this person was a too, eh slap?
I've been going to the Rockies for over 40 years and they have had pine beetle infestations off and on all that time that I know of. Blaming pine beetles on "global warming" is just another bull claim that continues to undermine Global warming alarmists credibility.
I guess you could also say that denying this is not a problem undermines the deniers credibility.
I say the recent surge in pine beetles is directly related to the recent surge in Somali pirates.
That makes just as much sense as blaming it on man caused global warming.
Prove me wrong.
prove me wrong first
The beetles are vulnerable below certain temperatures, which kept them from living at higher/colder al udes. Irrefutable, y'alls is slapped again.
Here again, confusing weather variations with climate change. You're the only that consistently gets slapped in here.
CC provided his logic (past experience), you provided nothing.
Burden of proof falls on your shoulders.
I'd like to point out that "forests being able to adapt" doesn't quite equal "feel free to pollute because forests can just adapt".
Forests may be able to adapt, but that doesn't mean there there might not be negative short and/or long term repercussions for the environment us humans prefer.
The infestations in at their current level are certainly due to a lack of cold winters. Pine beetles at their current populations are only maintained due to the lack of sub freezing temperatures over extended periods in the winter.
No one said that they were new. Its the fact that the warming climates have made it worse.
Weather is a matter of days. Year after year of warmer winters is a climate issue and not a weather issue. The prolong warming that has led to the beetle's current levels is not a weather issue but in fact a climate issue.
It is certainly plausible to say that this is not AGW that has led to these beetles population growth since most of AGW's affects will occur in the future but it is also logical to assume that further tempature rises will lead to a greater occurence of these types of events.
So just to be clear, I don't blame the pine beetle's on AGW but I do think AGW will make these type of situations more common.
Darrin isn't programed to use this type of logic.
Would the world continue to warm from the little ice age, even without humans?
Answer: Yes
Is weather really a matter of days? I realize that as a meteorology student you have probably been exposed to more weather related theories than I have but in my experience some "weather" changes can last years...
As a part time farmer/rancher I am painfully aware how variations in the water temperature in the Southern Pacific Ocean can effect rainfall in San Antonio, Texas.
We have experienced periods of rainfall/drought all my life as these ocean temperatures bounced up and down. Some of these droughts lasted for years and were quite extended.
In my unsophisticated, uneducated view this is change in weather and not climate change.
The same with the freezes in the Rockies...They have had warm winters and beetle infestations before, and hard winters that killed them. They will have hard winters again and the beetles will die again. These things happen beyond the influence of man.
BTW, an educated argument can be made that the death of these mature trees from the beetles is actually beneficial to the long term forest ecosystem.
Oh, pish posh! Everyone knows we'll be better off when Al Gore and Barack Obama turn back the tides (Which Barack began after the 2008 election) and reverse global warming! Lord knows, an extension of the growing seasons, globally, is less preferred than frozen tundra in Acapulco!
Weather is only measured in days. You may be confused because they both basically mean the measurement of the same thing but weather is up to two weeks while climate is anything on a larger scale. When you talk about whether or not December will be cold you're talking about climate. When you talk about whether or not it will rain over the next few days that is weather.
Weather can't really be the source of a pine beetle infestation of this sort because it builds up over the course of many years - even decades. That by definition is a climatic issue.
Like I said, this doesn't mean its a lasting or long term change but what it means is that the climate over decades has warmed and this has caused the pine beetles to thrive. What it does mean is that if humans cause the planet to warm then over the next few centuries we can expect more events like this which would be directly related to human activity. It may or may not be beneficial on a longer time scale and thats certainly up for debate. If you go back and read my long history of posts here I have always maintained that AGW comes with beneficial side effects such as warming the climate in areas such as Siberia and allowing for further agriculture. Its a complex issue that is not all bad and not all good but its almost impossible to tell which end of the spectrum it will ultimately lie on (although the US military seems to think its chaotic and thus negative - take their opinion for what its worth).
An extension of the growing season means if the upper air patterns are changed and your annual rainfall drops off a ledge.
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