{"id":34242,"date":"2018-09-09T13:49:24","date_gmt":"2018-09-09T17:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=34242"},"modified":"2018-09-09T13:49:24","modified_gmt":"2018-09-09T17:49:24","slug":"another-global-threat-down-the-drain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=34242","title":{"rendered":"Another Global Threat Down The Drain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steven Hayward posted an article at Power Line<\/a> yesterday about some recent research on deforestation. It seems that it is not happening.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

I have noted from time to time the data from the United Nations Global Forest Resource Assessment (UNGFRA) that has found that deforestation stopped at least 25 years ago, and that net reforestation has been taking place.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the UN data is not as good as one would like. This week, however, Nature<\/em>magazine published a major new study<\/a>with much more precise measurements and analysis than the UNGFRA based on 35 years\u2019 worth of satellite imagery, and it finds that since 1982 global forest cover has increased<\/em>by 7.2 percent, or 2.24 million kilometers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article includes information from the study:<\/p>\n

Changes in land use and land cover considerably alter the Earth\u2019s energy balance and biogeochemical cycles, which contributes to climate change and\u2014in turn\u2014affects land surface properties and the provision of ecosystem services. However, quantification of global land change is lacking. Here we analyse 35\u00a0years\u2019 worth of satellite data and provide a comprehensive record of global land-change dynamics during the period 1982\u20132016. We show that\u2014contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally<\/span>\u2014tree cover has increased by 2.24\u00a0million\u00a0km2<\/sup>\u00a0(+7.1% relative to the 1982 level). This overall net gain is the result of a net loss in the tropics being outweighed by a net gain in the extratropics. Global bare ground cover has decreased by 1.16\u00a0million\u00a0km2<\/sup>\u00a0(\u22123.1%), most notably in agricultural regions in Asia. Of all land changes, 60% are associated with direct human activities and 40% with indirect drivers such as climate change. Land-use change exhibits regional dominance, including tropical deforestation and agricultural expansion, temperate reforestation or afforestation, cropland intensification and urbanization. Consistently across all climate domains, montane systems have gained tree cover and many arid and semi-arid ecosystems have lost vegetation cover. The mapped land changes and the driver attributions reflect a human-dominated Earth system.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In addition to the reforestation of the earth, global warming has slowed down since 1999.<\/p>\n

In 2014, the BBC<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n

Scientists have struggled to explain the so-called pause that began in 1999, despite ever increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The latest theory says that a naturally occurring 30-year cycle in the Atlantic Ocean is behind the slowdown.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The researchers says this slow-moving current could continue to divert heat into the deep seas for another decade.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, they caution that global temperatures are likely to increase rapidly when the cycle flips to a warmer phase.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I guess those who study the earth and its climate have not yet figured out all of the answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steven Hayward posted an article at Power Line yesterday about some recent research on deforestation. It seems that it is not happening. The article reports: I have noted from time to time the data from the United Nations Global Forest … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,11799,94,3582,57,627,5647,223],"class_list":["post-34242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-climate-change","tag-deforestation","tag-environment","tag-forest","tag-global-warming","tag-power-line","tag-steven-hayward","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34243,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34242\/revisions\/34243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}