Testing Future Conditions for the Food Chain - and other articles
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/science/testing-future-conditions-for-the-food-chain.html
Source: By Justin Gillis, The New York Times.
For Investigation: 10.3
Excerpt: ...The Illinois researchers are trying to move past just documenting the potential trouble, though. The bigger question is: What can be done to make crops more resilient? That has lately become an urgent topic. For decades, many climate experts were relatively sanguine on the issue, thinking that warming in frigid northern countries would benefit crops, helping to offset likely production losses in the tropics. Moreover, some research suggested potentially huge crop gains from a sort of counterintuitive ace in the hole: the very increase in carbon dioxide that is causing the planet to warm. ...The tests so far have confirmed the beneficial “CO2 fertilization effect,” as it is known. But in field conditions, the boon to the crops was not as great as in earlier greenhouse experiments, and probably not enough to offset the heat and other stresses of a warmer planet. “It’s there, it’s real, but the question is, how much is it going to help?” Dr. Leakey said....
Also, 2014 Sept 23 New York Times had a flurry of climate change related articles. See
Source: By Justin Gillis, The New York Times.
For Investigation: 10.3
Excerpt: ...The Illinois researchers are trying to move past just documenting the potential trouble, though. The bigger question is: What can be done to make crops more resilient? That has lately become an urgent topic. For decades, many climate experts were relatively sanguine on the issue, thinking that warming in frigid northern countries would benefit crops, helping to offset likely production losses in the tropics. Moreover, some research suggested potentially huge crop gains from a sort of counterintuitive ace in the hole: the very increase in carbon dioxide that is causing the planet to warm. ...The tests so far have confirmed the beneficial “CO2 fertilization effect,” as it is known. But in field conditions, the boon to the crops was not as great as in earlier greenhouse experiments, and probably not enough to offset the heat and other stresses of a warmer planet. “It’s there, it’s real, but the question is, how much is it going to help?” Dr. Leakey said....
Also, 2014 Sept 23 New York Times had a flurry of climate change related articles. See
- Flooding Risk From Climate Change, Country by Country
- For Polar Bears, a Climate Change Twist. By JAMES GORMAN
- Portland Will Still Be Cool, but Anchorage May Be the Place to Be. By JENNIFER A. KINGSON
- Too Much of a Good Thing. By NATALIE ANGIER
- A Microscopic Issue of Unknown Consequences. By HENRY FOUNTAIN
- It’s Not Genghis Khan’s Mongolia. By RACHEL NUWER
- A Future as Clouded as Their Past. By GEORGE JOHNSON
- Shining Star Power on a Crucial Subject. By JUSTIN GILLIS
- For Trees Under Threat, Flight May Be Best Response. By CARL ZIMMER
- Global Warming Concerns Grow. By MARJORIE CONNELLY
- Three Divergent Visions of Our Future Under Climate Change. By NATHANIEL RICH
- Warming Temperatures Threaten Fragile Balance in Canadian Arctic. By MICHAEL BECKER