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The feedback loops that cause everyone to worry come from global climate models. How do we know that the plants won't absorb all of the excess CO2 without stud
by jamez1 9y ago
The feedback loops that cause everyone to worry come from global climate models.
How do we know that the plants won't absorb all of the excess CO2 without studying the local effects? The world is full of positive and negative feedback loops, discussing linear effects on the earth without taking into account these loops won't get us very far.
- snowwrestler 9y agoThey mostly don't. The models help us make detailed predictions, but you don't need a computer model to know that warmer air holds more water vapor, or that reducing snow cover reduces albedo. A lot of the biggest questions about how climate change will play out can't be well-modeled yet--like cloud formation, methane deposits in deep ocean or permafrost, etc. We need to learn more, and as we do, we feed that into the models and they improve. > How do we know that the plants won't absorb all of the excess CO2 without studying the local effects? We know that plants aren't absorbing all the excess CO2 because we directly measure CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, and they are going up.