How does rising atmospheric CO2 affect marine organisms?

Click to locate material archived on our website by topic


Volume 6 Number 1:  1 January 2003

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

Current Editorial
Demise of "The CLAW" Greatly Exaggerated: The authors of a recently published study say their results sound the death knell of an important negative climate feedback phenomenon involving oceanic phytoplankton, atmospheric sulphur and cloud albedo - affectionately known as the CLAW hypothesis - that helps keep a lid on global warming.  In so contending, however, they generalize their results far beyond the bounds of what is reasonable, as other contemporary studies clearly demonstrate.

Subject Index Summaries
Acclimation (Grassland Species): A brief review of the relevant scientific literature indicates that elevated CO2 can induce photosynthetic acclimation in grassland species in response to insufficient sink strength, which results in an accumulation of carbohydrates within source leaves that triggers the subsequently beneficial phenomenon.

Centennial-Scale Climate Cycles (Solar Influence): Warming such as that experienced over the past century and a half has happened again and again with great regularity throughout the Holocene, all without any help from man.  So why do we need to blame ourselves now?  Let's credit the sun.

Current Journal Reviews
Winter-Spring Precipitation History of Chihuahua, Mexico: Does Chihuahua's winter-spring precipitation history of the past century - when climate alarmists claim that anthropogenic CO2 emissions produced unprecedented warming that should have led to greater extremes of both droughts and floods - look much different from the winter-spring precipitation history of the two and a half centuries that preceded it?

More European Mountain-Lake Temperature Histories: What can they tell us about the state of the world's climate today?

Effects of Elevated CO2 on Potato Growth and Water Use: Elevated CO2 typically increases the growth and water use efficiency of potato species grown at low altitudes.  Will it do the same for a species of potato adapted to the high altitudes of the South American Andes?

Effects of Elevated CO2 on Gas Exchange in Winter Wheat: Elevated CO2 concentrations often increase photosynthetic rates in winter wheat plants.  How have man's plant breeding and selection efforts impacted this phenomenon?  Chinese scientists report their findings.

Effects of Elevated CO2 on Gas Exchange in Rice: How will the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content impact the productivity and water requirements of the world's most important crop in the years ahead?  Is this question merely academic?  Or does it possess a moral dimension?