How does rising atmospheric CO2 affect marine organisms?

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Volume 5 Number 36:  4 September 2002

Temperature Record of the Week
This issue's Temperature Record of the week is from Franklin, Louisiana. Visit our U.S. Climate Data section to plot and view these data for yourself.

Current Editorial
Feeding Humanity to Help Save Natural Ecosystems: The Role of the Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentration: As the human population of the globe continues to grow, we take ever more land from nature and use it to produce the food we need.  What will be the final outcome of this greatest "land grab" of all time?  And how can it be altered by the continued burning of coal, gas and oil?

Subject Index Summaries
Chlorophyll: How do leaf and needle concentrations of this important plant pigment respond to increases in the air's CO2 content?

Temperature - Urbanization Effects: Are the near-surface air temperature data we possess good enough to detect a component of historical global warming that can confidently be attributed to the model-predicted greenhouse effect of the past couple of centuries' anthropogenic CO2 emissions?  Or do contemporary urbanization effects so contaminate the data as to make such attribution impossible?

Carbon Sequestration Commentary
Global Warming: Can It Be Slowed by Worms?: Faced with a perceived problem that challenges the ability of technological man to even make a dent in it, nature reveals another of its secrets for keeping its cool, but only after some ingenious scientific probing of an obscure facet of its complex suite of biological thermoregulatory systems.

Current Journal Reviews
A 232-Year History of High Water Levels at Liverpool: Are the seas that cast themselves upon the shores of England any higher nowadays than those that did so a quarter of a millennium ago?

Deaths in Oslo, Norway: Do they follow the climate-alarmist dictum that they become more numerous as temperatures rise?

The Climatic Secrets of Elk Lake, Minnesota, USA: More new evidence points to the existence of multidecadal and multicentennial solar influences on climate.

Will Elevated CO2 put Biodiversity at Risk in Serpentine Grasslands?: Most of California's native grasslands have been overrun with exotic species, with the exception of those found on nutrient-poor serpentine soils.  In this study, the author investigates whether or not increases in the air's CO2 content will favor the resistance or surrender of serpentine grasslands to invasion by the annual forb Centaurea solstitialis.

Contrasting Effects of Elevated CO2 and Nitrogen Supply on the Growth Responses of Two Moss Species: In two parallel studies the authors investigated the role of elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration and nitrogen deposition on the regeneration of peatlands dominated by Polytrichum and Sphagnum species of moss.