Timothy Birdnow

They just never quit sounding stupid.

Climate Models Got It Wrong: Plants Can’t Absorb As Much CO₂ As We Thought

The argument is that plants can't get enough NITROGEN to absorb more carbon dioxide. Uh, last time I checked, nitrogen made up 78% of our atmosphere. You can't get away from the stuff if you tried.

Carbon Dioxide makes up just 0.04%. Seems to me it would be easy to get all the nitrogen a plant needs but carbon dioxide not so much.

There argument is nitrogen must be bound in the soil for plants to take advantage of it. O.K.; we know soil gets exhausted and high-nitrogen fertilizer will revive the soil. But so what? Nothing has really changed in the wild and plants dying put the nitrogen right back into the soil. More plant growth absorbes more carbon dioxide and at the same time more nitrogen, both of which are returned to the soil upon the plant's death.

If this is true why is it that tropical forests are actually removing more carbon dioxide than scientists thought? If nitrogen availability is limiting plant absorbtion of co2 then it should happen equally in the tropics.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:10 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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