Time and again climate alarmists have used computer models to claim that rising CO2 and rising temperatures should be negatively impacting various ecosystems, including forests. Given that these two parameters have supposedly reached unprecedented heights in modern history, reason suggests that this hypothesis of ecosystem decline should be presently evident in observational data. But is it?
Thanks to the work of Lamont et al. (2020) this question can be answered — at least for a mangrove forest ecosystem in New South Wales, Australia.
What the five Australian researchers did in their study was to examine the biomass change of two mangrove forest sites over the period 1989-2018. The two sites included a tall gallery forest composed of Avicennia marina (i.e., Site 1) and an interior, higher elevation, stunted mixed community of A. marina and Aegiceras corniculatum (i.e., Site 2). Data originally gathered in a 1989 survey were compared with new data obtained by Lamont et al. in 2018 and thereafter analyzed for possible trends.
Results of the analysis are summarized in the figure below, showing large gains in both aboveground and below ground biomass between the two survey dates at both mangrove forest sites. Of particular note is “a greater than seven-fold increase in mean aboveground biomass” at Site 2, and “a six-fold and 12-fold increase [in total below-ground root mass] at Site 1 and Site 2, respectively.” Such large biomass increases, not surprisingly, were estimated by the authors to have contributed to large gains in carbon sequestration. In extrapolating such gains to the entire New South Wales region, they estimate mangrove forests have sequestered “at least about 1.8 Tg C” over the past 70 years.
The above findings represent incredible growth benefits reaped by mangrove forest ecosystems during a time of rising atmospheric CO2 and rising temperature, which findings are pretty much the opposite of the doom and gloom predictions offered by climate alarmists.
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In May 2018, Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano let loose its largest eruption in 200 years, spewing plumes of ash high into the air, and covering hundreds of homes in lava. The eruption terrified local residents, but it gave scientists a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study the volcano’s explosive behavior. Now, a new study claims that extreme rainfall boosted underground pressures and was the “dominant factor” in triggering the eruption.
It’s not the first time rainfall has been linked to volcanic activity, says Jenni Barclay, a volcanologist at the University of East Anglia who was not involved in the new work. Previous research suggests storms passing over Mount St. Helens may have played a role in explosive activity between 1989 and 1991. And intense rains fell shortly before and during the activity of Montserrat’s Soufrière Hills volcano from 2001 to 2003. Rain may have also triggered eruptions of Réunion’s Piton de la Fournaise volcano. Still, Barclay believes rain is, at best, a contributing factor to volcanic eruptions and not the main driver. “It’s a series of coincident events that have led to the triggering of this larger episode,” she says.
Researchers on the new study used satellite data from NASA and Japan’s space agency to estimate rainfall during the first months of 2018, before the start of the eruption. More than 2.25 meters of rain fell on the volcano in the first months of 2018, the researchers found. They created a model to show how the accumulated rainfall could seep into the pore spaces in rocks deep underground, boosting pressures that eventually caused fissures in the volcano’s flank to open up and release magma. When they looked at records of previous Kilauea eruptions going back to 1790, they found that 35—more than half—started during the nearly 6-month rainy season.
Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano erupted on 3 May 2018, leading to a massive outpouring of lava that devastated the southeastern part of the island. USGS HAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORY
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