Carbon Cycle Models Underestimate Indirect Role of Animals

Request: PLEASE READ the entire OP below before forming any response. You may find some twists in your thought process along the way, and should refrain from posting a response until you've understood my full position in posting this information. Thanks

Link to Article
From the article:

While models typically take into account how plants and microbes affect the carbon cycle, they often underestimate how much animals can indirectly alter the absorption, release, or transport of carbon within an ecosystem, says Oswald Schmitz, the Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology at F&ES and lead author of the paper. Historically, the role of animals has been largely underplayed since animal species are not distributed globally and because the total biomass of animals is vastly lower than the plants that they rely upon, and therefore contribute little carbon in the way of respiration.

Here is one real-world example cited in the study:

In one case, an unprecedented loss of trees triggered by the pine beetle outbreak in western North America has decreased the net carbon balance on a scale comparable to British Columbia's current fossil fuel emissions.

This all without human contribution....a natural event that mimcs a man-made impact. Very interesting indeed, and makes one wonder how many more of these have been overlooked and the resulting impact blamed upon a human cause?

Does this mean that man-made climate change is all bunk? Ahhhh.... a definitive no. Just that up until now, it has been found that the effect of natural forces (i.e. plant/animal impacts) have been whoafully underestimated in the current climate models used to advance the Carbon Credit markets. Well, is that no surprise here? After all, how much money can be made in the management of animals and plants compared to scaring and guilting people into buying and selling carbon credits?

I would like to see the models updated with this new found information and see what impact is them predicted from man-made assistance. Will we see this done? I guess that depends upon how it would impact the political and economic landscape.

reply to post by Krakatoa

Kill the beetles, save the Earth! Kill the whales, they eat krill which eat algae which process CO2!

The trouble with trying to include factors like this in models is that they aren't really modelable. Knock down a forest and you remove x trees which reduce CO2 but also remove y animals which produce CO2. Which forest is going to get knocked down? And the fact remains that in spite of dying beetles and disappearing gnus, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere just keeps going up.

But there are in fact, some people who are trying to actually quantify the animal factor.

inhabitat.com...

Graphene is made from carbon I heard.

I can see why they want to form a carbon tax so bad before the technology emerges.

Tax free energy before its even here!!

Free energy = No need for money = Freedom for realz

Phage
reply to post by Krakatoa

 

But there are in fact, some people who are trying to actually quantify the animal factor.

inhabitat.com...

The aliens are gonna laugh when they see that!!

reply to post by Krakatoa


Yea, Im going to have to agree with Phage(this time) LOL sorry phage....

But, its too much of an unknown variable to be thrown into calculations.

At best, they can create contingencies for various variables, but to measure this would be pretty damn hard and not worth much.

Im sure there are other factors such as the pine beetle in other countries, but I seriously doubt that they would be factored into the carbon tax system when such things are already widely known by the scientific community.

(Im not defending the carbon tax here, I just dont see this as a 'problem' more so a step forward in understanding. Im also not saying that we should shy away from taking care of the Earth either.)

reply to post by Phage


What's starting to annoy me Phage is that this entire debate keeps us all away from the real problem.

Are we going to regulate properly and stop adding the amount of man made CO2 emissions our planet can't cope with?

And here I fear the answer is simply a big no. This for political and financial reasons. Of course keeping the two factions busy with nit picking on each other helps hiding the main issue.

500 ppm/v very soon and I see no reason or action to reverse that alarming trend.

The irony is that in the past 800 000 years it was during cooling periods CO2 levels went down (stockpiled in the natural sinks) and went up again during warming up periods. While now if we would enter a global cooling we would just burn more because we would need to burn more to compensate for the cooling making it just worse.

That’s a very interesting link Krakatoa. I have often pondered how the warmist climate models do not correctly take account of changes in phytoplankton or sea-bed hydrogen sulphide eruptions that can dramatically change eutrophication/degradation in turn altering pH levels and affecting absorption of atmospheric CO2. I suppose the real-world is just too complex. The variables are almost infinite. To produce perfectly correct models one would have to sufficiently comprehend what every living organism on the planet is doing at every moment, and their relationships to one another, including the eco-system around them, simultaneously. I find it more disconcerting that the carbon-cycle models ignore fundamental laws of physics, such as Henry’s law and Le Chatelier’s Principle. But of course the warmist models are nothing more than political tools anyway.

Nidwin
reply to post by Phage

 

Are we going to regulate properly and stop adding the amount of man made CO2 emissions our planet can't cope with?

Let's hope not. CO2 seems to be having a positive effect by enhancing the growth-rates of plants. Virtually no warming for over 16 years now. The alarm is over.

Nathan-D

Nidwin
reply to post by Phage

 

Are we going to regulate properly and stop adding the amount of man made CO2 emissions our planet can't cope with?

Let's hope not. CO2 seems to be having a positive effect by enhancing the growth-rates of plants. Virtually no warming for over 16 years now. The alarm is over.

Sure.
Let's have another closer look why we shouldn't start to regulate this entire fiasco more closely.

en.wikipedia.org...

www.ncsu.edu...

But of course, as you said.
It's good for the plants so let's all make a choice.

Phage
reply to post by Krakatoa

 

Kill the beetles, save the Earth! Kill the whales, they eat krill which eat algae which process CO2!

The trouble with trying to include factors like this in models is that they aren't really modelable. Knock down a forest and you remove x trees which reduce CO2 but also remove y animals which produce CO2. Which forest is going to get knocked down? And the fact remains that in spite of dying beetles and disappearing gnus, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere just keeps going up.

But there are in fact, some people who are trying to actually quantify the animal factor.

inhabitat.com...

edit on 10/17/2013 by Phage because: (no reason given)

Forgive me if I misunderstood, but are you taking the position that "it's too hard to quantify, so lets ignore it" stance here Phage? If so, then IMO that is an irresponsible position when there is so much at stake. Shouldn't the scientific community, which are supposed to be populated with really smart people, find a way to simulate these values based upon mathematical models that can extrapolate as closely as possible as opposed to ignoring it because "it's hard and makes my head hurt" ? After all, they are already trying something hard, predicting global weather over longer periods....or is this all just a political football?

reply to post by Krakatoa

Forgive me if I misunderstood, but are you taking the position that "it's too hard to quantify, so lets ignore it" stance here Phage?

My point was about the singular events mentioned in the article. These are, apparently, quantifiable just as the effects of large volcanic eruptions are. The trouble is, like large volcanic eruptions, "unprecedented" events are not predictable.

An unpredictable event like a volcanic eruption or the sudden loss of habitat can be modeled by it isn't going to be of much use unless that event occurs. You can say "what if this happens" but modelling one time events doesn't really help predict what is going to happen if those events do not occur.

I'm not saying the role of wildlife (or domesticated animals) should be ignored. While That's why I pointed out that cattle study (also because the picture is rather amusing). I find the closing statement somewhat contradictory though:

"We're not saying that managing animals will offset these carbon emissions. What we're trying to say is the numbers are of a scale where it is worthwhile to start thinking about how animals could be managed to accomplish that."

www.sciencedaily.com...