Climate Outcome NZ
  • Climate Outcome. Home page.
  • Latest posts & news
  • Temperature
  • Precipitation changes in a warming world.
  • Increased flood damage in a warming world.
  • Drought
  • Wind
  • El Nino Southern Ocilation. ENSO.
  • Sea Level
  • Polar melting
  • Arctic sea ice + weather.
  • West Antarctica
  • Ocean Acidity
  • Plant Die Back. Animal Migration.
  • Climate threats
  • Streams a vital resource.
  • Clean energy alternatives.
  • Climate Change in the Bay of Islands
  • The Author. Bob Bingham.
  • Satellite accuracy.
  • Reference sites

Bob Bingham Blog page.

A series of opinion pieces on, mostly climate change and related subjects to do with New Zealand.

Back to home page.

Trees in a 3 C warmer world. 

12/1/2016

4 Comments

 
Picture
Climate change is a very wide ranging subject and how it will affect our lives at a personal level is sometimes hard to deduce. To illustrate what might happen locally we could look at trees and see how they will fare and from that we can deduce other environmental changes.
To state the obvious, trees are not mobile, and because they have been growing in the same locality in a wood for thousands of years with a stable climate they are not very tolerant to change.
The evidence of this is easily observed from where you live. If you look at the trees in your locality and take note of the types and then travel North or South to where the temperature is 3C warmer or cooler, you will notice that the trees will be very different.  This indicates that the trees grow where they have the climatic conditions to suit them and if you change the climate by 3C they will be under considerable stress even if moisture and nutrients remain the same.

Picture
 Another way of observing trees natural temperature range is by changing the elevation. Temperature goes down by 7C for every 1000 meters of altitude and so if you go up a hill 500 meters the temperature will drop 3.5C and this might be easier than driving 1000 Kilometers North or South.
The green/blue patches on the temperature map roughly equate to the mountainous regions. 
This paragraph from  New Zealand research by D. O. BERGIN and M. O. KIMBERLEY. into improving the success of collecting and planting the seeds of trees and the value of getting the climatic conditions right for survival, including altitude.
 Totara growth.     http://newzealandecology.org/nzje/1911.pdf

“ It follows that large-scale planting for ecological purposes, such as re-vegetation of former Totara forest areas, should use seed of local origin and similar altitude in order to obtain trees with the same genetic integrity and which are suited to the local climatic conditions”
. 

Picture
The blue on the  rainfall map shows how the rainfall in Northland varies in detail but roughly equates to more rainfall on high ground.

Picture
Humans have been burning fossil fuels in huge amounts over the last hundred years and have moved the CO2 content of the atmosphere from its normal range of 180 ppm in an ice age to 280 ppm in a warm period to over 400 ppm today. This increase in CO2, which is a major greenhouse gas, has already caused the global temperature to rise by 1C and there is debate about whether we can contain the rise below 2C or even 3C. This is affecting the normal circulation  of atmospheric winds around the globe and means that in some areas there is increasing drought and in some areas increasing rain and you can be certain that where you live will not remain the same.

Picture
To get an idea of what the climate will be like in a world with 400 ppm of CO2 paleontologists have been researching the conditions when the world last had CO2 levels at that level, which was in the Pliocene era between 3 and 5 million years ago.
 What they have found is that the temperature was 3C warmer and the sea levels were 12 meters higher. Sea level is not an issue here so we will concentrate on the 3C temperature rise.
The first thing that springs to mind is that the trees of the Pliocene period were not the trees we have today and even if some of them are very similar they would have been growing in a completely different region of the world.

For a tree to grow healthily it needs a number of elements to be kept constant. The tree needs the temperature to remain within its narrow range of tolerance, it needs the right amount of water and for it to be available at the right time of year, the right amount of sunshine and it needs the right soil conditions to suit its needs.
Trees like CO2 and so they can be expected to grow faster if they have more of it but it has been found that the other elements, particularly water are more important. Research at the University of Western Sidney, where they are conducting many experiments on the effects of Increased CO2 and also changing rainfall patterns on trees shows that water supplies are the dominant factor in growth.

Explanation of the many types of research here.  
Picture
In this photograph of the UWS research facility the elevated part of the tree line is where the trees have been given extra water.

Picture
A danger with elevated CO2 in the atmosphere is that when it rains the natural ph of the water is slightly acidic and as our civilisation continues to burn fossil fuels we are increasing the acidity of the rain water.

 A tree has a huge root system which is as important to it as its branches and it relies on microbes in the soil to be healthy. Additional acidity can be fatal and although acid rain is associated with sulphur from burning coal everything that affects the trees natural state can put it under stress and be detrimental to its health. 

Most of the damage to our forests up to now have been caused by heat and drought and what appears to happen is that the tree becomes stressed by lack of water and then, in its weakened state, it becomes overwhelmed by pathogens, which could be beetles or a fungal disease and the tree dies. In addition to this, when a woodland has lots of dead trees, and then there is a forest fire, the fire that erupts is huge, as it has a lot of fuel, and this finishes the whole area off.
Prof Steve Running does an excellent talk on his work on the spruce trees in Montana.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLL7t3tF7z8
Modern satellites use cameras in the infra-red light sector to observe the health of forests around the globe in ways that cannot be done on the ground and the results are becoming increasingly alarming.

Picture
Picture
Forests are dying all round the world from the boreal forests in the North to the Amazon and Congo on the equator and there are a multiple of causes from drought, to infestation, to acidic soil, to introduced pests, to logging and land clearance and it is going to be a very different world for future generations without the trees and woodlands we are used to.
Picture
4 Comments
Bob Bristow
18/1/2016 05:42:46 pm

Hi Bob,

Many thanks for all that detail on the state of our global forests, and the excellent Keeling lecture from Prof Running, sad that so many forests are in trouble, as they are vital for our planets health. I was shocked to learn from the Potsdam Institute, that unless we invent an efficient super atmospheric CO2 scrubber (which seems very unlikely), maintain and increase our forests, we will skip our next ice age/glacial event (due in around 50,000 years). It also seems that many people already knew about this (James Hansen wrote about it in "Storms of our Grandchildren") I am glad I visited the Franz Josef glacier in the mid 1990's - and seems we are really heading for "Hot-House" Earth (a period that man has never existed in before), and associated weather instabilities and immense sea level rise. Unless we de-carbonise quickly and get planting those forests.

Human-made climate change suppresses the next ice age
Authors: Ganopolski, A., Winkelmann, R., Schellnhuber, H.J. (2016):

https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/human-made-climate-change-suppresses-the-next-ice-age

Reply
Bob Bristow
18/1/2016 05:58:55 pm

I stopped at a petrol station today and was pleased to notice a Electric Vehicle charging machine, (use was free of charge). I hope this will prove the old phrase "Mighty oaks from little acorns grow". Kudos to Gull and it's good to see EV facilities starting up in N.Z, that's progress.



Gull joined forces with Mighty River Power as the supplier of its EV charging unit, enabling motorists to fuel-up free with ‘home-grown’ renewable electricity, a cheaper and cleaner alternative to imported fossil fuel.

Gull launches first electric vehicle charging station. . . . . .


Karl Mischewski, Retail Development and Sustainability Manager at Gull, says electric vehicles are an emerging technology that one day will become common place. How soon that will be is unknown, but it will be driven by demand from Gull customers and uptake of electric vehicles in New Zealand, he adds.

“We are doing everything we can to help reduce our carbon footprint. Electric vehicles will be a big part of the future.

“Gull is renowned for many industry firsts, including low sulphur diesel and biofuels and this is another step we are taking to offer drivers more sustainable fuelling options.”

As innovators in the renewable energy industry, Gull believes every drop of fossil fuel saved makes a difference

http://driveelectric.org.nz/gull-launches-first-electric-vehicle-charging-station/

Reply
Bob Bingham
19/1/2016 10:30:24 am

Thanks for those two posts Bob. Something is certainly happening but we don't know what and we have to live in hope. Our minister for Transport went to Japan to test a driverless car and although it was not reported as being an electric one the two systems often go together.
We have had a change of Minister for Climate Change and I hope that the new one is a bit more positive.

Reply
Bob Bingham link
19/1/2016 10:44:22 am

That was a good article on Gulf. I went to see Fraser Whineray, CEO of Mighty River Power and he has certainly grasped the problem and is working to convert our transport system to electric. He has a lot of clout and lets hope he is successful.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Bob Bingham 

    Occasional blog posts on topical news items concerning the climate.  Please click the RSS feed to receive updates.

    Picture

    Archives

    December 2024
    April 2024
    June 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    May 2021
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    September 2019
    December 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    September 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Clean Water
    Climate Change.
    CO2 Levels
    El Nino
    Floods
    Methane
    Ocean Acidity
    Pine Island Galacier
    Sea Level Rise
    Soil Loss
    Storms

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly