This blog is in line with what Peter Bunyard, myself and others have calculated in our paper: https://medcraveonline.com/IJBSBE/IJBSBE-09-00237.pdf titled: ''Restoring the earth’s damaged temperature regulation is the fastest way out of the climate crisis. Cooling the planet with plants''
Global cooling, particularly the sensitive regions of the Northern Hemisphere's Arctic and subarctic zones should be focused on more closely. Most scientists understand that these regions are heating up to 4x faster than the rest of the planet. You do not have to look to faraway Anastassia to see the tremendous upheavel around all the hydro dams created from 1950s to the 1970s in Siberia!
These have stopped the major rivers pushing their waters inland over forests tundra and permafrost to form sea size reservoirs. The waters are impounded/ stored for 6 months at a time. Only in winter is this now warmed stagnant water drawn back to dams to generate hydro power. But wintertime forcing these warmed waters that used to flow 24 x 7 year round and would freeze solid in winter, now flow with great capacities unfrozen most of their way to the Kara Sea and into Arctic ocean. The relentless WINTER flows have weakened Siberian Arctic to unable to reform its ice during winter the way it used to do.
Anastassia one needs to concentrate in ones own back yard as there is much more going on with the forced blockage of the some of our planets main arteries and veins causing major thermal heating, nutritional depletion(trapping most rich nutrients behind dams) - leading to starvation of marine life of all sizes, including and most important, microscopic Diatoms- The diatoms are one of the largest and ecologically most significant groups of organisms on Earth. They are also one of the easiest to recognize, because of their unique cell structure, silicified cell wall and life cycle. They occur almost everywhere that is adequately lit (because most species need light for photosynthesis) and wet - in oceans, lakes and rivers; marshes, fens and bogs; damp moss and rock faces; even on the feathers of some diving birds. Some have been captured by other organisms and live as endosymbionts, e.g. in dinoflagellates and foraminifera. Because of their abundance in marine plankton, especially in nutrient-rich areas of the world's oceans, diatoms probably account for as much as 20% of global photosynthetic fixation of carbon (~ 20 Pg carbon fixed per year: Mann 1999), which is more than all the world's tropical rainforests
"Now, in order to calculate the global warming that it produces, you can compare it to the known radiative forcing from CO2 (approximately 2 W/m2), which has presumably accounted for the observed warming of about 1.5 K beginning from the industrial era. "
Shouldn’t all the feedbacks also be included with the known physical effects of CO2 (and correlated GHGs) radiative forcing in the global warming response?
Calculating the total warming effects, apart from the Bowen ratio effects, is a devilishly complicated issue, which is why it still remains controversial to top physicists like yourself, and why hard core empiricists like myself would rather see real data.
Thank you for this very important question. You are absolutely right, we must include the feedbacks. That is why when estimating warming from reduction in transpiration we do not use Stefan-Boltzmann law. It would produce a smaller warming. If the forcing from transpiration reduction is say 0.5 W/m2, according to Stefan-Boltzmann this would translate to a temperature increase of just about 0.1 K (for the global mean surface temperature of 288 K). Carbon dioxide forcing of about 2 W/m2 would translate to a temperature increase of about 0.35 K.
But currently we have a warming of 1.5 K, which apparently includes positive feedbacks. So our approach is to compare the transpiration reduction forcing (0.5 W/m2) with carbon dioxide forcing (2 W/m2) and to infer from this comparison that, if feedbacks are the same (!), transpiration reduction should have accounted for one fifth of the observed warming.
This said, I fully agree with you that the more data we have, the better we can in principle understand our climate, especially if we look in the right direction. We cannot collect all data on Earth, so from my perspective what is needed are clear concepts of what we could expect to find. Einstein is said to have stated that "‘Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use’. So, in my opinion, if we persist in excluding the biosphere from consideration of big climate issues, we will never learn anything no matter how much data we get.
The comments section is still open! Please respond with either this substack, or a shorter response to the article. Judith S. and I are encouraging our EcoRestoration Alliance colleagues to spread the word!
I have not figured out yet how to post a note to my blog, so I am posting this here as a comment:
In relation to our recent discussion of cooling from transpiration, Sue at EcoRestoration Alliance asks: “Who has done the calculations on cooling per hectare? Where can I find them?“
We have been talking about how a local decline in transpiration translates to a global effect. So it is not equivalent to local cooling that we can measure directly with a thermometer. It is more tricky.
The main idea is as follows. Suppose you decrease transpiration by T W/m2 on an area S.
This means that globally you reduced the water cycle intensity (because rain also declined) by T S/E, where E is the area of the Earth.
This has led to a forcing of approximately (1 - k) TS/E, where k < 1 is the transmissivity of the atmosphere with respect to thermal radiation.
(The energy flux T that previously radiated to space relatively unimpeded, is now converted to thermal radiation at the surface.)
We thus have obtained a radiative forcing of (1 - k) TS/E (W/m2). Now, in order to calculate the global warming that it produces, you can compare it to the known radiative forcing from CO2 (approximately 2 W/m2 by 2020), which has presumably accounted for the observed warming of about 1.5 K beginning from the industrial era. Dividing (1 - k) TS/E by CO2 forcing and multiplying by 1.5 K will give an approximate global warming that the reduction of transpiration by T on area S has incurred.
In Rob (de Laet)'s calculations the atmospheric transmissivity k is not taken into account (this leads to an overestimate of the effect), but then he uses the Stefan-Boltzmann law to calculate the warming from the (overestimated) forcing. This is a partially compensating omission, because such a calculation does not take into account the climate feedbacks to the forcing. These increase warming beyond what is calculated from the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
Responding to Rob (Lewis)' question, no, these estimates do not consider any changes in the surface albedo or in the cloud cover. It is only about how the change in the water cycle intensity per se can influence the global surface temperature.
13% forest loss during the industrial period, beginning 1850, seems low to me. I am guessing that this number counts replanted monocrops as still being forest and therefore not lost, yet I also suspect replanted, industrially managed forests effect the climate differently than primary forest, the later have much more biotic complexity and intelligence involved in it's relationship with the atmosphere. This is the question constantly on my mind in Washington State, USA: how would the water cycle be different if the original forest were running the water cycle rather than greenhouse grown monocrops, cut every 60 years or so.
Hello, Rob, thank you for your very first comment. This number, 13%, is taken from Figure 7 of Hurtt et al. (2020). Harmonization of global land use change and management for the period 850–2100 (LUH2) for CMIP6. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-5425-2020 and corresponds to the loss of "primary forests" whatever their definition might mean.
Additionally, we lost a good deal of primary non-forest ecosystems, with the total loss of primary ecosystems on land beginning from 1850 amounting to over 30%, see Figure 1 here https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1150191 . This should have also reduced transpiration (e.g. when sparse woodlands were turned into agricultural fields).
Otherwise it is a big topic that you touch upon. Since the water cycle on land is so full of tipping points, impoverishing the genetic program that regulates it can lead to drastic changes.
As far as you are aware, does this impoverishment of the genetic program figure in anywhere with the present scientific view of how the climate works and how we damage it. I'm guessing there is no way a model could parameterize biotic regulation, but is it even a recognized aspect of the matter?
It works the other way round. It is not that this genetic (and thus functional) impoverishment is recognized as something to be reflected in the climate models. Conversely, as far as their biotic dimension is concerned, models are conceptualized using the data from those impoverished, unnatural systems that people know most about.
Hence we have such concepts as nutrient limitation, CO2 fertilization etc. as the modelling cornerstones. Hence inconsistencies like the missing carbon sinks persist.
This blog is in line with what Peter Bunyard, myself and others have calculated in our paper: https://medcraveonline.com/IJBSBE/IJBSBE-09-00237.pdf titled: ''Restoring the earth’s damaged temperature regulation is the fastest way out of the climate crisis. Cooling the planet with plants''
Global cooling, particularly the sensitive regions of the Northern Hemisphere's Arctic and subarctic zones should be focused on more closely. Most scientists understand that these regions are heating up to 4x faster than the rest of the planet. You do not have to look to faraway Anastassia to see the tremendous upheavel around all the hydro dams created from 1950s to the 1970s in Siberia!
These have stopped the major rivers pushing their waters inland over forests tundra and permafrost to form sea size reservoirs. The waters are impounded/ stored for 6 months at a time. Only in winter is this now warmed stagnant water drawn back to dams to generate hydro power. But wintertime forcing these warmed waters that used to flow 24 x 7 year round and would freeze solid in winter, now flow with great capacities unfrozen most of their way to the Kara Sea and into Arctic ocean. The relentless WINTER flows have weakened Siberian Arctic to unable to reform its ice during winter the way it used to do.
Anastassia one needs to concentrate in ones own back yard as there is much more going on with the forced blockage of the some of our planets main arteries and veins causing major thermal heating, nutritional depletion(trapping most rich nutrients behind dams) - leading to starvation of marine life of all sizes, including and most important, microscopic Diatoms- The diatoms are one of the largest and ecologically most significant groups of organisms on Earth. They are also one of the easiest to recognize, because of their unique cell structure, silicified cell wall and life cycle. They occur almost everywhere that is adequately lit (because most species need light for photosynthesis) and wet - in oceans, lakes and rivers; marshes, fens and bogs; damp moss and rock faces; even on the feathers of some diving birds. Some have been captured by other organisms and live as endosymbionts, e.g. in dinoflagellates and foraminifera. Because of their abundance in marine plankton, especially in nutrient-rich areas of the world's oceans, diatoms probably account for as much as 20% of global photosynthetic fixation of carbon (~ 20 Pg carbon fixed per year: Mann 1999), which is more than all the world's tropical rainforests
Tom at EcoRestoration Alliance asks:
I have a question on:
"Now, in order to calculate the global warming that it produces, you can compare it to the known radiative forcing from CO2 (approximately 2 W/m2), which has presumably accounted for the observed warming of about 1.5 K beginning from the industrial era. "
Shouldn’t all the feedbacks also be included with the known physical effects of CO2 (and correlated GHGs) radiative forcing in the global warming response?
Calculating the total warming effects, apart from the Bowen ratio effects, is a devilishly complicated issue, which is why it still remains controversial to top physicists like yourself, and why hard core empiricists like myself would rather see real data.
Dear Tom,
Thank you for this very important question. You are absolutely right, we must include the feedbacks. That is why when estimating warming from reduction in transpiration we do not use Stefan-Boltzmann law. It would produce a smaller warming. If the forcing from transpiration reduction is say 0.5 W/m2, according to Stefan-Boltzmann this would translate to a temperature increase of just about 0.1 K (for the global mean surface temperature of 288 K). Carbon dioxide forcing of about 2 W/m2 would translate to a temperature increase of about 0.35 K.
But currently we have a warming of 1.5 K, which apparently includes positive feedbacks. So our approach is to compare the transpiration reduction forcing (0.5 W/m2) with carbon dioxide forcing (2 W/m2) and to infer from this comparison that, if feedbacks are the same (!), transpiration reduction should have accounted for one fifth of the observed warming.
This said, I fully agree with you that the more data we have, the better we can in principle understand our climate, especially if we look in the right direction. We cannot collect all data on Earth, so from my perspective what is needed are clear concepts of what we could expect to find. Einstein is said to have stated that "‘Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use’. So, in my opinion, if we persist in excluding the biosphere from consideration of big climate issues, we will never learn anything no matter how much data we get.
Best wishes,
Anastassia
Whoops -- I was wrong, they closed the comments section!
Thank you Anastassia -- we need these explanations! Yesterday the New York Times posted a misleading article about the reasons for global. desertification. (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/climate/global-desertification.html)
The comments section is still open! Please respond with either this substack, or a shorter response to the article. Judith S. and I are encouraging our EcoRestoration Alliance colleagues to spread the word!
I wrote an article to try and explain some of Makarieva's previous thoughts (which this above article builds on) on lapse rates and transpiration, and get people up to speed on what lapse rates are (lapse rates are based on the diagrams in article above where you plot height vs temperature) https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/carbon-warming-water-cooling . And made this youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnrYy5T3-uk
I have not figured out yet how to post a note to my blog, so I am posting this here as a comment:
In relation to our recent discussion of cooling from transpiration, Sue at EcoRestoration Alliance asks: “Who has done the calculations on cooling per hectare? Where can I find them?“
We have been talking about how a local decline in transpiration translates to a global effect. So it is not equivalent to local cooling that we can measure directly with a thermometer. It is more tricky.
The main idea is as follows. Suppose you decrease transpiration by T W/m2 on an area S.
This means that globally you reduced the water cycle intensity (because rain also declined) by T S/E, where E is the area of the Earth.
This has led to a forcing of approximately (1 - k) TS/E, where k < 1 is the transmissivity of the atmosphere with respect to thermal radiation.
(The energy flux T that previously radiated to space relatively unimpeded, is now converted to thermal radiation at the surface.)
We thus have obtained a radiative forcing of (1 - k) TS/E (W/m2). Now, in order to calculate the global warming that it produces, you can compare it to the known radiative forcing from CO2 (approximately 2 W/m2 by 2020), which has presumably accounted for the observed warming of about 1.5 K beginning from the industrial era. Dividing (1 - k) TS/E by CO2 forcing and multiplying by 1.5 K will give an approximate global warming that the reduction of transpiration by T on area S has incurred.
In Rob (de Laet)'s calculations the atmospheric transmissivity k is not taken into account (this leads to an overestimate of the effect), but then he uses the Stefan-Boltzmann law to calculate the warming from the (overestimated) forcing. This is a partially compensating omission, because such a calculation does not take into account the climate feedbacks to the forcing. These increase warming beyond what is calculated from the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
Responding to Rob (Lewis)' question, no, these estimates do not consider any changes in the surface albedo or in the cloud cover. It is only about how the change in the water cycle intensity per se can influence the global surface temperature.
13% forest loss during the industrial period, beginning 1850, seems low to me. I am guessing that this number counts replanted monocrops as still being forest and therefore not lost, yet I also suspect replanted, industrially managed forests effect the climate differently than primary forest, the later have much more biotic complexity and intelligence involved in it's relationship with the atmosphere. This is the question constantly on my mind in Washington State, USA: how would the water cycle be different if the original forest were running the water cycle rather than greenhouse grown monocrops, cut every 60 years or so.
Hello, Rob, thank you for your very first comment. This number, 13%, is taken from Figure 7 of Hurtt et al. (2020). Harmonization of global land use change and management for the period 850–2100 (LUH2) for CMIP6. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-5425-2020 and corresponds to the loss of "primary forests" whatever their definition might mean.
The world's population has increased sevenfold since 1850.
Additionally, we lost a good deal of primary non-forest ecosystems, with the total loss of primary ecosystems on land beginning from 1850 amounting to over 30%, see Figure 1 here https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1150191 . This should have also reduced transpiration (e.g. when sparse woodlands were turned into agricultural fields).
Otherwise it is a big topic that you touch upon. Since the water cycle on land is so full of tipping points, impoverishing the genetic program that regulates it can lead to drastic changes.
As far as you are aware, does this impoverishment of the genetic program figure in anywhere with the present scientific view of how the climate works and how we damage it. I'm guessing there is no way a model could parameterize biotic regulation, but is it even a recognized aspect of the matter?
It works the other way round. It is not that this genetic (and thus functional) impoverishment is recognized as something to be reflected in the climate models. Conversely, as far as their biotic dimension is concerned, models are conceptualized using the data from those impoverished, unnatural systems that people know most about.
Hence we have such concepts as nutrient limitation, CO2 fertilization etc. as the modelling cornerstones. Hence inconsistencies like the missing carbon sinks persist.