Re:Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener
by marcus_holmes on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @04:21AM
(#19262059)
but TFA clearly says we haven't wiped out 90% of the plant biomass. It clearly says that there are more plants than there were 20 years ago, not less.
CO2 concentrations are growing at <1% pa (year on year - there are large variations between northern hemisphere summer/winter), so an additional 2% absorbing effect from an increasing number of plants is not insignificant.
Re:Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener
by simonh on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @05:08AM
(#19262227)
As I said I was making up numbers. Given enough plants they will eventually sequester all the CO2 (if we let them). This effect would make that slightly more efficient, that's all. However the actual amount of plant matter sequestering the CO2, and what those plants are and how efficiently they work to do so, are likely to be a much more significant factors. Whatever those factors are though, we're talking about extremely long periods of time.
It's very small effect that would take enormous spans of time to make any significant difference. Also in order for those plants to grow faster and make a difference, there needs to be a significant amount of plants. So it's a marginal issue. If plants grow at (made up number) 2% faster due to higher CO2 concentrations, that doesn't help much if we've wiped out 90% of the plant biomass.