Monday, March 11, 2013

Plants as Temperature Sensors

Okay, thermometers as sensors of global temperature have many deficiencies. They are not deployed widely enough to adequately average in regional variations, such as over the oceans (70% of the Earth's surface area). They also have a questionable input relative to "large city heat effects".

So what could be better? Well, if you have been following this blog, you know I favor sea level rise sensors. As the Earth warms, land based ice melts and sea levels rise. And yes, sea levels are rising. For all my sea level blog posts, or for just NOAA Data (and scroll down to sea level data).

BUT on to plants, millions and millions of them, all across the sparsely inhabited high latitudes of our northern hemisphere. How are they doing? In a nutshell, they are mostly prospering through warmer temperatures, and more rain fall. Just take a look at this latest NASA release.

Now for a NY Times blog post by Andrew Revkin, a concerned climate news reporter whom I admire a great deal. I would say he takes a more optimistic approach to the new NASA study by looking at plants adapting...and I hope he is right.

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GREENLAND - Will probably be the focus of near term sea level rise

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