Earth "Losing Fight Against Global Warming" - Sunday Herald

[hatrack]

THE Earth is losing its natural resistance to global warming as the oceans and forests reach capacity in their ability to soak up carbon emissions, say scientists. Using a new computer model, researchers “fast- forwarded” 100 years to reveal that unless emissions are curbed, land and seas – the “sinks” for carbon dioxide – will become steadily less effective at removing carbon from the atmosphere, causing the planet to heat faster and increasing temperatures and droughts.

Lead researcher Dr Inez Fung of the University of California, Berkeley, told the Sunday Herald the model debunks one argument put forward by global-warming sceptics that plants will flourish and the oceans bloom in a warmer environment. “Our work shows that if we keep going on our current course of fossil fuel emissions, the land and oceans will not be able to slow the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere the way they are doing now. Land and oceans absorb about half of the carbon dioxide produced by human activity at the moment. If we accelerate our emissions, the saturation rate will increase,” she said.

Fung’s model suggests that as heat and droughts increase, plants cut back their intake of carbon dioxide to save water. Ultimately, they stop absorbing it at all. Similarly, as the oceans heat up they struggle to absorb carbon dioxide which then collects near the surface, further preventing absorption and accelerating global warming. Using data from 1982 onwards, Fung said the northern hemisphere has “greened” each spring and summer as the climate has warmed, leading to more atmospheric CO2 being absorbed by plants.

However, since 1994, as droughts have made the world hotter and drier, plants have been unable to cope. Even though plants could take in more CO2 in spring, that has been offset by decreasing CO2 uptake during summers which have become increasingly dry, literally “browning” the Earth. “We’re saying ‘hold on a second – plants may not be happier in a warmer and drier world’. This negative effect of hot, dry summers completely wiped out the benefits of warm, wet springs. If you look at satellite pictures of the Earth over this time you can actually see this happening now,” Fung said.

EDIT

http://www.sundayherald.com/51146

[phantom power]

1. in order to "win" you usually have to actually "try."

[Pooka Fey]

2. What fight???!!! How about getting the govt or the TV news to even say

the phrase "Global warming"

:cry::cry::cry: