[Terrapreta] Fwd: transect points - Soils and its role in a changing climate

[Michael Bailes]

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Date: 15-Feb-2007 22:05
Subject: transect points - Soils and its role in a changing climate
To: michaelangelica <michaelangelica at gmail.com>



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*"transect points <http://transectpoints.blogspot.com/index.html>"* - 1 new
article

*Soils and its role in a changing
climate<http://transectpoints.blogspot.com/2007/02/soils-and-its-role-in-changing-climate.html>
*

 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/lulu/5687585/>
Roger Pielke Sr., over at his research group's climate science
blog<http://climatesci.colorado.edu/>,
has been holding forth on land use change and its impacts on long-term near
surface temperature. His position is that the role of land use must be
further emphasized within the climate change framework. Search for
"soil<http://climatesci.colorado.edu/index.php?s=soil&submit=Search>"
and "land <http://climatesci.colorado.edu/index.php?s=land&submit=Search>"
for a long list of supporting posts.

This goes beyond deforestation and urban heat islands. Dust and alterations
in atmospheric water content play unknown roles and interact with albedo in
sometimes counterintuitive ways. For example, irrigation warms rather than
cools the land<http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/02/irrigation_most_likely_to_blam.html>.
Evaporative cooling is insufficient to drive net cooling of irrigated
regions. Soils darkened by moisture absorb more heat than dry soils and
re-radiate more heat during the night. This results in warmer nights and
warmer average temperatures.

Current climate models are not sensitive to changes in land use. Neither are
they sensitive to the soil's role in affecting atmospheric carbon levels.

Soil organic matter, at roughly 1500 GtC, is the single largest compartment
of carbon in the active biogeochemical cycle. At 60 GtC annual flux (in
either direction), it is 10 times larger than the 5.5 GtC flux due to
burning fossil fuel. Yet soil is the component of the carbon cycle that we
know the least about.

Most soil scientists agree with the unvalidated concept that soil carbon
levels will likely decline in step with temperature increases. Higher
biological activity will result in more decomposition of organic matter. One
certainly sees a similar relationship between soil carbon and temperature
when comparing the effect of elevation, aspect and latitude. That we have
yet to validate it <http://www.news.wisc.edu/13450.html> is telling.

Current climate models mostly ignore the specific role that soil microbes
play in the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The information
they do include is often based on assumptions that have never been tested in
the field, and may be wrong or overly simplistic.

Our climate models are telling us we need to become far more efficient and
more conservative in managing our planet's carbon, soil-wise and fuel-wise.
But our scientific understanding will never be adequate for crafting our
full response<http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21221327-7583,00.html%5D>to
climate change.

The fact is that our climate is infinitely complex. The models
climatologists use to predict the future are incredibly sophisticated, yet
blunt instruments. Scientists can never account for all the variables
involved - indeed, no one has successfully come up with a mathematical
equation to describe the formation of a single cloud. And scientists are
often woefully out of their depth in the real world. History is littered
with lives and regimes that were wrecked when science was allowed to drive
policy with no thought to humanity. Tearing down the global carbon-based
economy to - in theory - replace it at a later date with unproven and
undeveloped technologies would be a similar folly. It is only by tempering
science with economics and the market, which is the most efficient arbiter
of humanity's wants and needs, that smart climate policy can be made.

Science and the market are partners of longstanding. Economic necessity, as
the mother of invention, has been driving the advance of science for as long
as science has been an identifiable pursuit.

Distorted Vision <http://www.flickr.com/photos/lulu/5687585/>
Originally uploaded by uaezlulu <http://www.flickr.com/people/lulu/>.

Technorati Tags: climate+change <http://technorati.com/tag/climate+change>
land <http://technorati.com/tag/land>
irrigation<http://technorati.com/tag/irrigation>
soil+science <http://technorati.com/tag/soil+science>
research<http://technorati.com/tag/research>
politics <http://technorati.com/tag/politics>

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-- 
Michael Bailes.

"Five years of Guantanamo:
Justice delayed is justice denied"
-Amnesty.International.
:candle:
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