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Global Greening is a negative climate feedback loop
increased CO2>increased plant growth (especially in desert regions)>increased CO2 uptake results in . . .
LESS GLOBAL WARMING done end of story

Increased greening is a good thing and can resequester some CO2, however CO2 concentration is clearly continuing to march upwards despite it. I think it used to be that 50% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions were absorbed mostly by the oceans and some by increased plant growth, but that percentage actually seems to be slipping down slowly. So the problem is that the effect of increased plant growth is too small and slow of a negative feedback to offset the CO2 from fossil fuel burning.

Snow in Saudi they will be building ski fields next and cashing in post PO while selling frozen date smoothies

Pstarr,

Interesting article. I thought I had seen a more recent chart that increased the percent of anthropogenic CO2 persisting to about 55% from 50%. I would have to dig to find it again. But for the 2002 to 2014 period in the paper, it looks mostly flat at around 50%. That still means the CO2 concentration continues to increase. I personally suspect the majority of the resequestration is dissolution in the ocean versus increased greening, but I have not done a significant literature search.

A major caveat in the paper worth noting:

Although the sensitivity of GPP to rising CO2 is expected to decline as CO2 concentrations rise (see Methods), the observed enhancement will thus likely persist into the future as long as the stimulation of productivity by elevated CO2 continues to outweigh net carbon releases from warming. The slowdown in global warming is expected to be temporary23 however and may already have ended with the strong El Niño Southern Oscillation of 2015 and 2016, with subsequent consequences for the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 (ref. 36)

Fertiliser run off from farms is one of the major causes of death to the Great Barrier Reef and every reef around the world.
http://www.realnatural.org/dying-of-cor ... rtilizers/
The added nutrients grows the food for crown of thorn starfish,over fishing reduces their predators and they just chew the reef
http://theconversation.com/great-barrie ... horns-6383

Then add acidification and rising tempratures

@ shaved......agree that the COF are extremely bad news for coral.....but.........................if water temperatures spike the coral expels the algae that gives the coral its colour and provides the nutrients ( up to 90 % of )


by the 2030,s 90 % of reefs could be at risk due to human activities and climate change


" by 2050 all coral reefs will be in danger "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_reef

Not sure where to post this. Food for thought:

When optimism spells disaster

https://mahb.stanford.edu/blog/optimism/

One of the most dangerous threats to the human future in this, the Age of Perils, is … optimism...

To overcome them humanity doesn’t need optimism or pessimism. It needs to exercise a singular attribute that has stood us in good stead for over a million years: wisdom.

dohboi - "It needs to exercise a singular attribute that has stood us in good stead for over a million years: wisdom." I might offer a more pessimistic view: wisdom (IOW knowledge of what's causing the problem) is not relevant if there's significant motivation of self interest to keep carrying on as we have been. IOW if every CC denier suddenly became a believer would we really see much effort to veer from BAU. Even the believers can't preach from the highest mountain top knowing that it will do little good and can thus continue benefiting from BAU.

Go ahead...make day, punk. LOL. Prove me wrong. IOW look how long the facts have been laid out. And yet in recent years the world has burned more fossil fuels then ever before.

ROCKMAN wrote:dohboi - "It needs to exercise a singular attribute that has stood us in good stead for over a million years: wisdom." I might offer a more pessimistic view: wisdom (IOW knowledge of what's causing the problem) is not relevant if there's significant motivation of self interest to keep carrying on as we have been. IOW if every CC denier suddenly became a believer would we really see much effort to veer from BAU. Even the believers can't preach from the highest mountain top knowing that it will do little good and can thus continue benefiting from BAU.

Go ahead...make day, punk. LOL. Prove me wrong. IOW look how long the facts have been laid out. And yet in recent years the world has burned more fossil fuels then ever before.

Yup. Our only chance is if green tech like EV's change the economic picture enough and soon enough to make burning FAR less FF's in peoples' self-interest.

If that happens very quickly, that MIGHT give us a chance to develop technologies to actually get rid of excess CO2 (like the electric leaf concept I keep reading about -- i.e. Star Trek technology compared to what is viable today) to actually mitigate the problem. (But since those won't be used unless the problems from AGW are BAD enough to convince TPTB to spend lots of money, that seems like a long shot).

Given how slowly we make progress, due to almost zero economic incentives from the governments (i.e. US, collectively), I'm not at all optimistic it won't be far too late.

But it's possible. My concern is for future generations. Pushing 60, I'll very probably have more issues with health in the next couple decades to worry about. For my neices and nephews under 30, and especially their kids, I believe the AGW problems are going to be front and center, impacting their lives in a major way when they're old.

onlooker wrote:Sorry to say these positives referred to are just sporadic trends in a cascading and accelerating set of doom trends. As AP stated optimism and pessimism are just state of minds we should endeavor to dispassionately analyze the facts and data. Upon doing so many here realize that Earth is in bad shape and getting worse. Until I see a complete halt and reversal in the way humans are acting rather then talking , I see no reason to be optimistic.

The earth is easily supporting over 7 billion humans. How bad of a shape can it possibly be in?