What was done
Using national grassland resource inventory data, a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series data set, and a satellite-based statistical model, the authors identified changes in the size and distribution of the aboveground biomass carbon (C) stocks of China's grasslands between 1982 and 1999.

What was learned
Piao et al. report that over the 18-year period of their study, aboveground biomass C stocks ... significantly increased from 136.3 Tg C in the early 1980s to 154.0 Tg C in the late 1990s," for a total increase of 13%. As for what factors might have been responsible for the C-stock increase, they note that "growing season average temperature for the study area increased by 0.052°C per year and growing season precipitation also tended to increase," which led them to conclude that "increased temperature may be associated with increasing C stocks and interannual changes in precipitation may be a factor in the fluctuations of C stocks." In addition, they suggest the "atmospheric CO2 fertilization effect and human activity such as land management may also partly account for the observed increase in biomass C stocks of China's grassland."

What it means
As was also the case with China's Forests, during an interval of time when the "twin evils" of the radical environmentalist movement - air temperature and CO2 content - rose by amounts the world's climate alarmists claim were unprecedented over the past thousand to a million or more years, respectively, aboveground C stocks in China's grasslands rose ever higher with each passing year. This great dichotomy leads us to wonder how these two despised phenomena could ever be associated with two such welcome results. Could it be that the atmospheric changes are not so bad after all?