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I heard John Baez call this "CO2 fertilization". And it's been talked about for a while. Hard to predict the effect, but the consensus seems to range from "coul
by alecst 5y ago
I heard John Baez call this "CO2 fertilization". And it's been talked about for a while. Hard to predict the effect, but the consensus seems to range from "could help, sorta" to "not really important".
https://www.azimuthproject.org/azimuth/show/Carbon+dioxide+fertilization https://www.azimuthproject.org/azimuth/show/Carbon+dioxide+f...
> The details of CO2 fertilization matter a lot. It could make the difference between their original plan being roughly good enough… and being nowhere near good enough!
Check the page for more info on young vs old trees, nitrogen limits, etc.
There's also this page, which has an even more pessimistic take.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/co_2-fertilization/ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/co_2-...
- bryan0 5y agoWow thanks for this link. I’m familiar with John baez’s writings on physics and category theory, I didn’t realize how deep he went into climate change though. Anyway after reading this I think I can answer my original questions a bit: Yes increased plant growth is a critical and part of climate change models. IPCC is predicting an increase of 6G tons of carbon consumed by plants by 2050 and without this we could not hit our carbon goals. Hopefully this research shows that our models are not overestimating here.