Go Back   The Environment Site Forums > Environmental News > Environmental News and Discussion Forum

Notices

Environmental News and Discussion Forum "Whatever befalls the Earth - befalls the sons of the Earth. Man did not weave the web of life - he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." - Chief Seattle

Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1 (permalink)  
Old 14th-May-2008, 01:13 PM
Sapling
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: MI
Posts: 2
ClearSky is on a distinguished road
Default Biomass changes and Global Warming

I was thinking, there must be some corroborating evidence we can get from biomass changes due to global warming. Does anyone know of any studies, papers or evidence using biomass changes to corroborate global warming.

Thanks!

Oh ya, I'm new, Hi all!
Reply With Quote
  #2 (permalink)  
Old 14th-May-2008, 01:55 PM
Eco Nut
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 317
Wowbagger
Default

Well, you mean studies that show a decrease of biomass due to global warming? You wouldn't find any. Global warming would have the opposite effect. This happens due to the increase of kinetic energy in the system, which leads to an increase of evaporation, and thus rainfall. And of course it also leads to a more tolerable climate in the hemispheres, with less restrictive winters.

Practical consequences of this could be the greening of deserts or parts of deserts such as the Sahara. There's an article about that in the journal Science: Sahara dried out slowly, not abruptly: study | Environment | Reuters.

Consider different global temperatures. A very cold temperature, such as would be the case in a snowball phenomena, wouldn't allow much life on Earth. On the other hand, warmer temperature from this snowball point would see the biomass density increasing, until a point where it gets to warm and this measure start decreasing. So there is a peak for the biomass density, which relate to an optimal temperature. We can evaluate the biomass density and correlate it to the global temperature in archaeological data. During the reign of the Dinosaurs, some 230 millions to 65 millions years ago, ecosystems underwent a phenomena of gigantism, which was only possible due to an increase of available energy. In fact, the global temperature was at these times a few degrees higher then currently, by a magnitude of about 3.
Reply With Quote
  #3 (permalink)  
Old 14th-May-2008, 02:37 PM
Sapling
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: MI
Posts: 2
ClearSky is on a distinguished road
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wowbagger View Post
Well, you mean studies that show a decrease of biomass due to global warming?
At the moment I'm not so concerned about the direction as scientific evidence that shows a correlation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wowbagger View Post
You wouldn't find any. Global warming would have the opposite effect. This happens due to the increase of kinetic energy in the system, which leads to an increase of evaporation, and thus rainfall. And of course it also leads to a more tolerable climate in the hemispheres, with less restrictive winters.
I agree the intuitive direction would be an increase, but if there were a confounding bias that suppressed the increase it would not increase.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wowbagger View Post
During the reign of the Dinosaurs, some 230 millions to 65 millions years ago, ecosystems underwent a phenomena of gigantism, which was only possible due to an increase of available energy.
Not quite true. Gigantism is possible within a species as long as there is available energy to support it. This available energy may be freed by reducing population densities, which most likely was the case with the mega-fauna of the last ice age.
Reply With Quote
  #4 (permalink)  
Old 14th-May-2008, 03:41 PM
spadlet's Avatar
Forum Hermit
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Yorkshire lass, born & bred
Posts: 1,568
spadlet is on a distinguished road
Default

(I just wanted to say Welcome to the Forum )
__________________
'There are only two ways to live your life, accept things as they are or take responsibility for changing them' Bhagat Singh (even if you don't agree with how he chose to apply this philosophy)
Reply With Quote
  #5 (permalink)  
Old 14th-May-2008, 05:56 PM
Forum Hermit
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 1,856
Blog Entries: 5
forfismum is on a distinguished road
Default

Thanks Spadlet its good to be here.







Oh you meant the other poster.....................
__________________
I am no longer associated with this forum,pleases do not reply to posts in my name
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 08:00 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.7.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Search Engine Friendly URLs by vBSEO 3.2.0 RC5
The Environment Site
Google