There was an article posted here two days ago [1], that states that

Some scientists, however, held out hope that there would be a key offsetting process: As the Arctic warms, it might also stow away more carbon as it becomes greener and supports the additional plant life, particularly in tundra regions. This “Arctic greening” is indeed occurring, but the new research suggests that the permafrost losses in early winter are more than enough to offset that.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15083989

This is a good question that is being actively investigated.

I think the idea is that the C stored in the permafrost has been accumulating for thousands of years, and yet could release in just 10s of years. So even if there is increased vegetation growth (which is predicted), there is unlikely to be enough rapid growth to offset the release of thousands of years of accumulated C.

Full disclosure: I actually work for a modeling group with the University of Alaska Fairbanks/Institute of Arctic Biology that is investigating these sorts of questions.

Are you also modelling outlier scenarios including mass planting (by hand or plane or drone or whatever) and if so.. do we have any hope?

Thank you for your answer. My reason to come back to HN is to read these kind of expert insights.

I'm not an expert, but my impression is that the problem with that is that these green house gasses are going from being long term sequestered to getting into the carbon cycle. When they get locked into plants, that's a very short term sequestration - when the plants die or are eaten, they decompose and the carbon goes right back into the atmosphere. Basically, plants aren't a great way to lower the average atmospheric CO2 levels.

Which begs the question, how do we do long term sequestration? Could we, for example, split CO2 into pure carbon and O2, and then bury the C as graphite (which I believe is not digestible to any organism)?

That´s sort of what´s already happening.

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/trees-tundras-borde...

Part of it is a question of time scale. Increased greening is happening to some extent and will likely increase, but that's a response that will take hundreds or thousands (or more) of years for enough changes to matter, and the intervening time period may be very inhospitable to most life that we're concerned about.

In some ways it's almost like healing - if you're young(ish) and get severely burned, lingering scar tissue may be almost indistinguishable by the time you're 70 but that doesn't mean it has no effect on you in the years in between.

Extended periods of winter darkness maybe?

stuff grows huge in the summer though

I find it odd that all the reported consequences of global warming are negative. Why wouldn't a modest rise in temperature do some good in at least some ways? I suspect that that would not advance the demanded panic, and is therefore ignored.

As others stated the negative consequences most likely outweigh the benefits (by far). Just for those who want to enter their weekend joyfully here is a list of possible positive outcomes:

* Siberia and Alaska become huge new areas for plantations. * Siberia and Alaska become habitable, wonderful nature reserves with Mammoths roaming about. * Due to rising CO2 levels plants grow faster and bigger * Due to rising temperatures the earth gets much wetter[0] * If you are lucky you might even witness the re-greening of the Sahara (not predicted by most simulations though?) * improved access to minerals on the ocean bed * increased fishing near Arctic * ice-free shipping lanes.

To limit your euphoria: the situation is much more dire for the Oceans. Also the system gets more chaotic with consequences spelled out and unforeseen.

[0] A parcel of air that is near saturation may contain 28 grams of water per cubic meter of air at 30 °C, but only 8 grams of water per cubic meter of air at 8 °C.

The good aspects aren't ignored, they're just relatively small.

Rapid change creates problems even when the net difference is superficially zero. For example, if I knocked down your house, but built two better houses in the middle of Nunavut, you'd probably still be unhappy, and it would still cause problems for your life.

The environment is adapted to the current situation so any swift change is bad. There might be some scattered good things but as the assumptions that much of human infrastructure is built on changes then there are obviously going to be trillions more in damages than benefits.

Do you really believe there is a conspiracy amongst the experts who study these things? Are there other areas of science in which scientists conspire to withhold information? If not why would you think this is the unique area of science that withholds information?

Even a cursory literature review will show you that there are almost no positive articles published regarding climate change, and it is patently false that not a single place or peoples on this planet could benefit from a warmer climate.

There may not be an explicit conspiracy, but there is an emergent, cultural force which has lead to the politicization of sciences, and I imagine you are aware that scientists have quite a bit of leeway in what they choose to study/report.

Anecdote, I know, but I say this as someone who went to school with future climate scientists, and their minds were made up long before they made it to grad school.

Whether you think climate change is catastrophic or not, you must agree that there is not enough skeptical literature available, and that makes it difficult for me personally to swallow the narrative without hesitation.

Yes there is a paucity of articles on the benefits of climate change. Is it because of conspiracy or because the effects are overwhelmingly bad?

Overwhelmingly physics grads enter grad school believing that the Earth revolves around the sun. There's a lack of articles in physics journals to the contrary. There's a lack of skeptical literature.

The lack of articles touting the benefits of climate change do not indicate there is a conspiracy nor should one think that there should be such articles in any but a small amount. This is especially so given the political climate in the U.S. where people are skeptical of climate science.

This phenomenon is circular. There is a void of publications on the subject, therefore, scientists and laymen begin to believe that there is no second side, and, combine that with politics, we end up with a seemingly settled science when, in truth, the process has not been scientific for at least a decade.

It is also absurd to be so certain about our potential impact on something as complex and chaotic as climate. Especially considering we also rely on trends on the order of millions of years, and we are making a judgment based on many orders of magnitude less time. Is it a bet worth making? Sure, in my opinion, but without some published skepticism, climate science may as well be propaganda when it comes to convincing people to act.

"It is also absurd to be so certain about our potential impact on something as complex and chaotic as climate."

This is where you are wrong. You may not understand it but the science is solid. It is well known what happens when too much green house gases occur. The physics is indisputable.

It is never only about physics when we talk about impact of climate change. Even if you talk about catastrophic runaway warming, it is caused by ecosystem-level feedback loops.

The question raised is what are the possible net-good feedback loops? Will flora benefit from it widely and expand everywhere? Will that be a good thing?

To paraphrase: This is where you are wrong. You may not understand it but the science is far from solid. It is not well known what happens when ecosystems react to too much greenhouse gases. "The physics is indisputable." is a hollow statement.

disclaimer: I am for active prevention of such things occurring, just for strategic reasons like "we don't have a clue what we're doing and we are apparently doing SOMETHING". But to claim it is obvious and "indisputable" sounds like dangerous propaganda to me.

I was responding to this statement:

"It is also absurd to be so certain about our potential impact on something as complex and chaotic as climate."

It is possible to be certain about impacts on climate. Increase CO2 in the atmosphere by a factor of a trillion. There will be runaway warming in the immediate term. This is known and well understood. I'm not claiming we are near this point but the suggestion that we can't know some effects because climate is hard is absurd.

Certain aspects can be certain, sure, but overall effects are beyond our understanding. We just have too small sample size ...

But while we disagree on what we know you're right that it's not clear cut and one can argue we already know quite a bit - e.g. those immediate effects is something I can imagine we have good grasp on, I've not studied that in depth as most debates are about ultimate consequences.

Thanks for new PoV!

No, but there is a huge bias in reporting favoring bad news.

What evidence do you have that there is such a bias? Have you considered the possibility that the prevalence of bad news as you call it is indeed the truth? That the absence of good news might be because the positive effects are dwarfed by the negative?

Let me rephrase, and maybe you'll agree.

If one million people in a city don't get murdered, and one does get murdered, whose fate will be reported as news?

The murdered one of course. And the reporting will be truthful. But that doesn't mean most people get murdered.

This is not at all relevant to the discussion. The one getting murdered is newsworthy and noteworthy. The many that do not is not newsworthy.

Rapidly increasing the temperature of the planet will have devastating consequences. Write news articles on its few benefits is not newsworthy in light of the impending devastation.

I note that now you're agreeing with yostrovs who originally asked "Why wouldn't a modest rise in temperature do some good in at least some ways?".

I never disputed this or implied otherwise. It's quite clear from what I have written that I acknowledge there will be some benefits. It's equally clear from what I've written that the lack of articles on this is not indicative of politics or some other nefarious reason.

Do good for whom? Sure, some species might benefit even if it's a disaster for humans.

Well, there were a few times in the last few hundred years of warmer global weather. And those coincided with good economic times for humans. Perhaps global warming would be detrimental to other species more than humans, as humans adapt well, particularly to more pleasant environments.

I don't think that's true. The two big changes in the past thousand or so years were the Medeival Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Both were more regional than global, and the Little Ice Age coincided with the Industrial Revolution, which of course started extremely good economic times.

Certain parts of the world/USA that are not suitable for farming now would become suitable for farming if they are not currently occupied. Parts that are not suitable for crops would either no longer be suitable for crops at all or need a different crop selection.

We also theorized that changing the global temperature affects weather patterns like a spring so that extremes in temperature changes/weather patterns will accompany the rising temperatures, and see it happening so it's a pretty solid hypothesis. This is overall a negative except for fans of extreme weather.