Global warming: will nature balance itself?

Question

When the earth gets hotter, plants can gorw in normal cold place and plant grow faster sine more supply of CO2. Will this offset the global warming?

Answer 1

A very good question with a good logic behind it.

Generally, in warmer conditions plants do better and if we left nature alone then there would be an increase in overall biomass - this means that more CO2 would be stored in the trees and plants whilst at the same time, more oxygen would be released.

However, we're not leaving nature alone and every year millions of acres of forest are being felled and millions more acres of green land is being lost under concrete. Overall there is a net reduction in the amount of trees and plants on the planet. Bad news considering we're producing more CO2 than ever before and at the same time are destroying the natural mechanism that removes it from the atmopshere (deforestation is the largest single contributor to manmade global warming).

A detailed answer would get complicated. It's not always true that increasing plant amounts offsets global warming, in some cases it contributes to it. However, overall the effect is a beneficial one.

Answer 2

All in all, nature has always had a way to cleanse itself. All these know it all, and wikipedia cut and paste-rs just repeat what others believe. Truth is, our population has grown by 5 billion people in the last century and that our magnetic pole has move so far that it is predicted to reach Siberia by 2050.By average 5 billion people times 3 megatons of CO2 per capita, means a whole lot more of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
Certain politicians and scientists just capitalizes on our political induced ignorance. The other major global iceberg melting factor is that magnetic pole. Which in turn releases more water and CO2 in our oceans and atmosphere which therefore increases risk of global warming.

Answer 3

The very best scientists don't think so.

One reason your scenario is unlikely is that all the world's plants right now aren't close to coping with what we're doing.

Look at this graph.

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/mauna_loa_record/mlo_record.html

The little squiggles are nature doing its' thing. CO2 falls a bit during summer when plants are active, and rises during the winter. The huge increase is us, burning fossil fuels. The scientists can actually show that the increased CO2 in the air comes from burning fossil fuels by using "isotopic ratios" to identify that CO2. The natural carbon cycle buried carbon in fossil fuels over a very long time, little bit by little bit. We dig them up and burn them, real fast. That's a problem.

Man is upsetting the balance of nature. We need to fix that.

The well respected scientist, James Lovelock, has published many articles and books about the wonderful self regulating capacity of Earth.

The data on global warming has convinced him that this time it's different. He now supports a massive effort to build nuclear plants to fight global warming.

Answer 4

Yes, in one way the nature tends to balance itself until reaches an equilibrium. But the current CO2 emission rate is beyond the current plants can absorb. This explains the global warming.


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Answer 5

if the so called "point of no return" is reached, nature will reach a new steady state eventually and return to more balance, provided GHG emissions slow down after this piont. It would likely take a very long time for the earth to restore itself to a condition were mass extinction stopped. In effect, we are altering the climate future that the earth would otherwise have if we were not producing GHG's

Answer 6

Not by much, but then scientists haven't agreed that the carbon emissions are what is causing it completely what you see on TV is said by the agreement of politicians, not scientists. Scientists are slow to come to conclusions.