Keeling Curve
June 23, 2005 9:46 AM Subscribe
Father of Global Warming Issues, Dr. Keeling, Dies at 77. He was best known for the Curve that was named after him and which described long-term changes in carbon dioxide and subsequently the carbon cycle. The oscillating, climbing "Keeling curve" of carbon dioxide concentration is arguably the single graph that best displays human impact on the environment.
The whole carbon argument is under question by a simple, new, and rather odd discovery. What the impact of this is, more atmospheric carbon or less, has yet TBD, but it is interesting.
First of all, plants are "more air than soil", in that most of their nutrition comes from atmospheric carbon in the form of carbon dioxide, compared to the small amount of minerals uptaken with their roots along with water.
To obtain carbon dioxide, plants open up pores on their leaves. However, in doing so, they lose water through evaporation.
Now the interesting part is that, when there is *more* carbon dioxide around, the plants don't need to open their pores as much, and thus need to uptake less replacement water. This means that more water remains in the soil, and the soil can thereby support *more plants*.
Again, nobody knows how this would affect atmospheric carbon dioxide, but several things could be extrapolated. First would be that more arid climates would have more plant growth. Second, that already moist soils could become so saturated that existing plants would be replaced with plants that could handle long-term root immersion. Moist soils would also have fewer worms, nematodes, underground insects and animals.
I'm sure that many other speculations could be made.
posted by kablam at 4:57 PM on June 23, 2005
First of all, plants are "more air than soil", in that most of their nutrition comes from atmospheric carbon in the form of carbon dioxide, compared to the small amount of minerals uptaken with their roots along with water.
To obtain carbon dioxide, plants open up pores on their leaves. However, in doing so, they lose water through evaporation.
Now the interesting part is that, when there is *more* carbon dioxide around, the plants don't need to open their pores as much, and thus need to uptake less replacement water. This means that more water remains in the soil, and the soil can thereby support *more plants*.
Again, nobody knows how this would affect atmospheric carbon dioxide, but several things could be extrapolated. First would be that more arid climates would have more plant growth. Second, that already moist soils could become so saturated that existing plants would be replaced with plants that could handle long-term root immersion. Moist soils would also have fewer worms, nematodes, underground insects and animals.
I'm sure that many other speculations could be made.
posted by kablam at 4:57 PM on June 23, 2005
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posted by delmoi at 11:31 AM on June 23, 2005