About 70% of the Earth’s post-1980s vegetative greening trend has been driven by CO2 fertilization. More greening has offset or reversed 29% of recent anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Greening also has a net cooling effect on surface temperatures.
Earlier this year we highlighted a study (Haverd et al., 2020) asserting rising CO2 and warming are the dominant drivers of Earth’s strong post-1980s greening trend. This greening expands Earth’s carbon sink so profoundly that by 2100 the greening of the Earth will offset 17 years (equivalent) of anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
A 17% offset over 80 years, or net CO2 emissions reversal, would easily supplant the effectiveness of Paris climate accord CO2 mitigation policies.
Image Source: Haverd et al., 2020
Now another new study (Piao et al., 2020) expands upon these same principles, further suggesting the net effect of more CO2-driven greening is more cooling and carbon sink expansion.
Since the 1980s, 29% of human CO2 emissions were cancelled out by the CO2-induced greening of the Earth. The post-2000 vegetative greening expansion has been so massive (5.4 million km²) its net areal increase is equivalent to a region the size of the Amazon rainforest.
“Vegetation models suggest that CO2 fertilization is the main driver of greening on the global scale, with other factors being notable at the regional scale. Modelling indicates that greening could mitigate global warming by increasing the carbon sink on land and altering biogeophysical processes, mainly evaporative cooling.”
[…] Related: New Study: Rising CO2 Drives Post-1980s Greening…Which Cools The Earth And Offsets 29% Of Human Em… […]
During the Devonian period, Earth’s atmosphere had more than 90% of the CO2 ripped out by voracious plant life. These plants starved themselves to extinction. The plants that survived evolved mechanisms to cope with much lower level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Man’s effort to restore the balance by returning some of the fossilised CO2 to the atmosphere will inevitably be frustrated by more abundant plant life consuming the excess over survival level. CO2 will never again reach the pre-Devonian period level of 4000ppm.
Great read!
Thanks for those two important papers.
The MSM silence on dramatic global greening just goes on.
[…] New Study: Rising CO2 Drives Post-1980s Greening…Which Cools The Earth And Offsets 29% Of Huma… […]