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Volume 18:  December 2015 Archive of CO2 Science Postings

Acclimation and Adaptation of Marine Fish to Possible Warming (31 December 2015)
An intriguing study finds new evidence for the ability of juvenile anemone fish to successfully deal with potential increases in future ocean temperatures...

Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment Helps Plants Recover from Droughts (30 December 2015)
In addition to slowing the rate of plant water loss during drought conditions, higher concentrations of atmospheric CO2 significantly reduce, or even eliminate, metabolic limitations resulting from drought damages...

Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment on Maize -- Summary (29 December 2015)
Nearly all agricultural species -- including C4 plants -- respond positively to increases in the air's CO2 content by displaying enhanced rates of photosynthesis and biomass production, as well as higher rates of water use efficiency. This summary reviews some of the impacts of these and other related phenomena as they pertain to the C4 crop species of corn (Zea mays L.), or maize as it is often called...

Growth and Yield of Three Maize Genotypes in CO2 Enriched Air (29 December 2015)
In spite of the fact that the three maize genotypes of this study are C4 plants -- which are typically somewhat less responsive to atmospheric CO2 enrichment than C3 plants -- this report of a study conducted in India suggests that such need not always be the case...

Changing Rangeland Conditions on the Qinghai Tibetan Plateau (28 December 2015)
A new study out of China reveals some significant positive consequences of recent changes in temperature and precipitation there, which changes bode well for several "key wild ungulate species" that live on the plateau...

Coral Immune Response to Physical Damage in Warmed Seawater (24 December 2015)
Even the double-whammy of simultaneous heat stress and physical injury may not be as debilitating to earth's corals as one might have thought would be the case...

The MWP in a Multi Proxy Record of Argentinas Laguna Nassau (23 December 2015)
Another temperature reconstruction of the past millennium suggests that the warmest interval of the period occurred at a time when the air's CO2 content was at its very lowest level...

Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment on Tomato -- Summary (22 December 2015)
A brief review of some of the recently published literature suggests that increases in the air's CO2 content will enhance biomass production in tomato, even under the stressful conditions imposed by fungal pathogens and high soil salinity...

An Evaluation of CMIP5 Simulations of Dryland Climate Change (22 December 2015)
As one might have supposed by now, the models investigated in this particular study pretty much have to receive a failing grade in terms of hindcasting global aridity changes over the past six decades or so...

Serious Climate Model Biases in Earth's Eastern Tropical Oceans (21 December 2015)
Until they are corrected, it may not be wise to rush headlong into an international get-together bent on developing an agreement among the nations of the world to limit their fossil fuel utilization based on the likely misguided predictions of current climate models...

Long Term Vegetation Cover Change in Semi arid South Africa (18 December 2015)
In spite of contrary assumptions and predictions, semi-arid regions of South Africa have become significantly "greener" over the past half-century or so...

Natural pH Fluctuations in a Coastal Environment (16 December 2015)
Current daily and seasonal pH fluctuations often exceed the projected 0.3 unit decline expected to occur by the end of this century by more than two-fold, yet life is thriving in this "acidified" coastal environment...

Abilities of Tropical Montane Plants to Cope with Global Warming (16 December 2015)
Is the outlook good or bad? ... Or is it a toss-up?...

How Greenhouse Warming May -- Or May Not -- Impact ENSO (15 December 2015)
A careful and thorough study of today's major climate models reveals a number of ways in which their performances appear to deviate from reality...

The Irrational Legacy of COP21 (14 December 2015)
In 1688, British author Aphra Behn penned the literary couplet "The World ran Mad, and each distempered Brain, Did Strange and different Frenzies entertain." This poetic verse could well serve as an accurate description of the apparent scientific absurdity associated with the climate alarmist movement of today. A case in point is illustrated in negotiations currently wrapping up at the United Nations climate conference in Paris (COP21), where despite much data and many observations to the contrary, delegates are holding fast to the assertion that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing dangerous climate change...

Modeling the Southern Annular Mode Antarctic SAT Connection (14 December 2015)
A new study of the most important pattern of climate variability experienced throughout the Southern Hemisphere reveals that current CMIP5 models fail to successfully link its primary characteristics to surface air temperature conditions...

Rapid Acclimation of a Reef-building Coral to Temperature Stress (11 December 2015)
Coral bleaching models that are currently used to predict coral bleaching and climate change responses to increasing temperature are based on fixed thermal tolerance. However, as shown in this study, acclimation can increase the level of thermal tolerance in corals, thus invalidating a key component of model-based projections of future coral bleacing...

Ocean Acidification How Aquatic Plants and Animals Can Avoid It (9 December 2015)
One solution would appear to be their choosing a home base, as it were, within seaweed or seagrass communities that significantly slow the rate of water flow through them...

U.S. Great Basin Precipitation and Its Pacific Ocean Connections (9 December 2015)
It would appear that the modelled connections are not all they're cracked up to be...

A Reduction in Tropical Cyclone Activity over the South China Sea (7 December 2015)
Two Chinese researchers report their findings of decreasing numbers, decreasing intensities and decreasing frequencies of landfall of tropical cyclones in their part of the world...

When it Comes to Climate Change, President Obama and Other World Leaders Could Benefit from a Little Common Sense (4 December 2015)
Earlier this week President Obama and other world leaders addressed participants of the latest United Nations conference on climate change in Paris (COP21), where they lent their support for a new legally-binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Given statements they made about both the causes and consequences of climate change, it is clear that what the world's leaders truly need is not another climate treaty, but a whole lot more common sense in evaluating this issue for our time...

The Combined Effects of CO2, Temperature and Drought on Wheat (4 December 2015)
As the air's CO2 concentration rises in the years and decades to come, the negative impacts of drought on wheat biomass and grain yield should diminish...

The Six Hundred Year Temperature Record of Lago Plomo, Chile (4 December 2015)
It provides one more example of empirical evidence that stands in opposition to model-based claims that modern temperatures have been rising in response to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations...

CO2 Enriched Air Boosts Water Use Efficiency of Four Chinese Trees (2 December 2015)
The numbers are pretty amazing...

Modelling Climatic Impacts of Low Clouds over Tropical Waters (1 December 2015)
They may look innocuous enough, but the power they wield on the Earth's global energy balance is a whole nother story...