Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

[CapelDodger]

What does one do with the salt?

Dump it in the Dead Sea, perhaps? Package it and sell it (under the "Lot's Wife" brand)? Pickle some of the veg? It's an asset, not a problem.

 

[CapelDodger]

I did intend to suggest that the "we need more research" ploy used as a "delaying any action at the moment" tactic was alive and well; disingenuous and potentially dangerous.

A zombie argument for deniers, but I don't think it influences policy. The "screw you" attitude of the Poles, for instance, doesn't need any excuses. They're just going to stick to it come what may because it's "in their national interest" to do so.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I'm sorry, but I have to say that I eagerly started to read about "rotational grazing" ... just to find that it is what we're doing here since the last third of the nineteenth century. Everyone knows here what a potrero is (paddock that is within a rotation) and what is a campo de invernada (winter paddocks). Do they do it in a different way in other countries? Is it even possible? I'm amazed.

Please, tell me that I jumped to a conclusion and they're not trying to invent the wheel.

What I also know that such rotational grazing is made to maximize the output -here is called "kilos de novillo por hectárea al año" (kg of bullock per hectare and year)- and that can keep the carbon content in the soil but not as a goal by itself. In fact, the major risk for local soil to deteriorate is taking grazing lands and forests to start cultivating crops to produce biofuels to export to guilty-conscious countries. That crappy activity is already adding lots of CO2 to the atmosphere and its environmental benefits are seen only many years before when soil deterioration is advanced and the soil carbon content is asymptotically converging to a sad shame.

I guessed you already understood a large part of this, which is why your reply and then very harsh reply later was somewhat confusing to me. You are not wrong. This isn't really a new wheel, just a management technique that optimizes a wheel that has been around a very long time, and has been used to increase productivity. In fact, Savory didn't originally develop this as a solution for global warming, he developed it to restore poorly managed land. It was only afterwards when people started looking at the SOC and started doing the math that it dawned on them this "side effect" of increased SOC was far larger than previously thought. (There were a few crazies like me that said it all along, but based on gut instinct not rigorous math or science) In fact the Undersander link I originally posted is all about profits and your "kilos de novillo por hectárea al año" (and milk) more than a tool to repair the ecological services including carbon sequestration.

"In fact, the major risk for local soil to deteriorate is taking grazing lands and forests to start cultivating crops to produce biofuels to export to guilty-conscious countries."

Exactly but that is what already happened here. Less than one tenth of one percent (<0.09%) of the original landcover of the tallgrass prairie biome remains in the USA. Instead is is used to raise corn and soy. The vast majority of that is used for livestock and biofuels. The drier shortgrass prairie region has also mostly been converted to cropland and small fenced continuously grazed pastures, or abandoned and let go to desertification.

The result? What was some of the most fertile ground in the world has been reduced to SOC levels astonishingly low. It is not uncommon to find what was once fertile mollic soil at 10% or more SOC a meter deep now containing a SOC of 2%, 1% or less. When I gave you the formula for what returning that land to fertility would sequester in carbon, you went off on me. Not sure why considering you do understand the effect proper management of the land can accomplish.

I talked on the phone with Gabe Brown when I was researching this. He ranches and farms 20,000 acres (16,000 grazed and 4,000 grazed and farmed in rotations). As I remember the conversation (I didn't tape it or take notes so I am only relying on memory), he started "mob grazing" (a very closely related rotational grazing method) and has brought his land back from <2% to > 7% SOC (with the first paddocks he started experimenting with approaching 10%) in less than 10 years. (He volunteered his farm as a NCAT-ATTRA case study, so it is documented and the data from his and other case studies can be found by contacting Jay Fuhrer, District Conservationist with the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) in Bismarck, North Dakota) And he is still raising some crops too! He integrated holistic management into his crop rotations as well as the pasture. So he actually plants cover crops designed for both soil health and use for livestock forage between his crop rotations.

So how is it that people say it can't be done, when it is already being done? Based on Briske who already has admitted he failed to confirm it primarily due to "experiments that intentionally excluded these human variables” ??? Or based on numbers related to the current screwed up model and improperly applying that data to holistic managed land???? All RealClimate proved essentially, is that the current conventional models of agriculture are inadequate and it is impossible to accomplish the task with that tool. They have no relationship at all to what could be done by changing the agricultural models. Completely irrelevant.

If what Gabe and others have already done were to be implemented on a large enough scale the carbon sequestration side of the equation would easily be settled. Then we would only need to start attacking the emissions side (which a lot of other smart people are working on) and problem solved.

 

[Reality Check]

All RealClimate proved essentially, is that the current conventional models of agriculture are inadequate and it is impossible to accomplish the task with that tool.

What RealClimate proved essentially in Cows, Carbon and the Anthropocene: Commentary on Savory TED Video, is that the comments by Savoy in the video are not reasonable based on scientific reality:

• The amount of human emissions is 8 Petagrams per year.
• The amount of carbon taken up by all of the vegetation in the world is about 2.6 Petagrams per year.
• There is "approximately 240 more Petagrams (Pg) of carbon in the atmosphere than in pre-industrial times".
• Grasslands currently contain ~20% of global carbon stocks.

and the conclusion is
Cows, Carbon and the Anthropocene: Commentary on Savory TED Video

While it is understandable to want to believe that such a dramatic outcome is possible, science tells us that this claim is simply not reasonable. The massive, ongoing additions of carbon to the atmosphere from human activity far exceed the carbon storage capacity of global grasslands
...
It is simply unreasonable to expect that any management strategy, even if implemented on all of the planet’s grasslands, would yield such a tremendous increase in carbon sequestration.

That increase is (very roughly!) 15-fold. Even the rancher you cite only managed ~3 times the original SOC.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

What RealClimate proved essentially in Cows, Carbon and the Anthropocene: Commentary on Savory TED Video, is that the comments by Savoy in the video are not reasonable based on scientific reality:

• The amount of human emissions is 8 Petagrams per year.
• The amount of carbon taken up by all of the vegetation in the world is about 2.6 Petagrams per year.
• There is "approximately 240 more Petagrams (Pg) of carbon in the atmosphere than in pre-industrial times".
• Grasslands currently contain ~20% of global carbon stocks.

and the conclusion is
Cows, Carbon and the Anthropocene: Commentary on Savory TED Video

That increase is (very roughly!) 15-fold. Even the rancher you cite only managed ~3 times the original SOC.

You are using bad math. Land that is slowly decreasing in SOC that changes to land that is increasing SOC referring to rates. Total SOC in the soil is not a rate, it is a gross amount. The rate of increase isn't 15 fold, it is infinity since rate of increase in SOC was 0 to begin with. (actually less than zero). Also the statistic "Grasslands currently contain ~20% of global carbon stocks." is completely irrelevant because it has absolutely nothing to do with the soil. That is an estimate of the carbon contained in the plant itself which has absolutely nothing to do with the soil that plant grows in. It also has nothing to do with soil either desertified or growing soybeans, since those areas are not growing grass at all (or nearly none). Completely irrelevant figures based on our current miserable state of affairs and not even close to addressing Savory's claims.

Now what my example shows is that Gabe's ground went from a net emission source to a net sequestration sink and managed to sequester over 156,000 tC on his 20,000 acres in less than ten years. (ETA That's counting only the top 1 foot since the % SOC drops as you go deeper. And the %'s are from a case study that lasted 5 years even though he was experimenting himself on part of his land earlier) In other words even still growing crops on some of his land and with many of those years in severe drought conditions, he was able to get better results than what Savory bases his claim.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Little note:

salinization (when soil is involved) - salination (when underground water is involved) - salination (when soil is involved)
desalination (when water is involved) - desalinization (when soil is involved) - desalinization (when water is involved)

Irrigation by river-water causes salination in arid regions (look what happened to Mesopotamia, and more recently around Aswan in Egypt).

That's why mankind has learnt long time ago to use part of the water to flush out salts and break salt horizons within the soils.

An aspect which interests me is that it creates an artifical environment - a market-garden in a box, essentially. I think we're going to need more of that as the natural environment goes to pot around us. Thinking of which, a lot of good pot is already grown in artificial environments ...

Now we're talking business!

What does one do with the salt?

Dump it in the Dead Sea, perhaps? Package it and sell it (under the "Lot's Wife" brand)? Pickle some of the veg? It's an asset, not a problem.

Who said that table salt is left? Of course you get some kosher salt in coastal places and you can extract some gypsum in other places. There are in fact certain points where it is good business to desalinate just to get valuable salts that pay for the process -fresh water is a bonus-. But a salty mess is what is left in most inland locations, so I suggest to vitrify it in order to pave regions and increase Earth's albedo.

 

[DC]

bad News for the "it's the sun" AGW Deniers.

Solar Activity Playing a Minimal Role in Global Warming, Research Suggests¨

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131107204235.htm

it Comes clearer and clearer, we overstimated the influence of changes in Solar activity on our climate.

 

[Reality Check]

You are using bad math.

I am using simple math on estimates of rates rather than Savoy's unsupported claim in the TED talk. The first 2 figures are rates, Red Baron Farms:

1. The amount of human emissions is 8 Petagrams per year.
2. The amount of carbon taken up by all of the vegetation in the world is about 2.6 Petagrams per year.
3. There is "approximately 240 more Petagrams (Pg) of carbon in the atmosphere than in pre-industrial times".
4. Grasslands currently contain ~20% of global carbon stocks.

Points 1 and 2 together give a minimum requirement that the rate of amount of carbon taken up by all of the vegetation in the world needs to be tripled just to sequester the carbon that we produce.

Point 4 is that grasslands are not all of the vegetation in the world ! Thus the 3-fold figure is much too small. It is more like 15-fold.

Point 3 is that 15-fold is still too small to support Savoy's claim that increasing SOC in grasslands will be able to get us back to pre-industrial levels.

What effect this has on SOC is a different and more complex issue. But it should be obvious that if the rate of amount of carbon taken up by all of the vegetation in the world remains the same then the SOC will not change.

ETA: "Grasslands currently contain ~20% of global carbon stocks." is completely relevant because grasslands have soil and that where most of the carbon stock is located!

Total SOC in the soil is not a rate (needs a Duh! here ).
Changing the total SOC in the soil is a rate. No one thinks that Savoy is stupid enough to say that future emissions will be magically sequestered by a sudden increase in SOC today! What he is claiming is that if you add 1% more SOC each year (a rate!) to grasslands then that will reduce CO2 to pre-industrial levels.

What Cows, Carbon and the Anthropocene: Commentary on Savory TED Video points out is that this claim requires an unreasonable change in the rate of amount of carbon taken up in vegetation and so to soil in grasslands (~15-fold).

 

[aleCcowaN]

No one thinks that Savoy is stupid enough to say that future emissions will be magically sequestered by a sudden increase in SOC today! What he is claiming is that if you add 1% more SOC each year (a rate!) to grasslands then that will reduce CO2 to pre-industrial levels.

[Thinking "aloud" mode] Then, what this Savoy person -whoever he or she is- seems to be doing is taking all the SOC in the first metre of soil, worldwide, some 1600GT according to my estimate , saying that something like a half of it is in grasslands, and concluding that a sustained yearly SOC increment of 1% it can sequester all CO2 humanity vomits,if we suppose we are in a levelled scenario, what we're not.

The problem is that soil organic carbon has to enter the soil as organic carbon, and this is the kind of platitude that suddenly looks to be fundamental when you see how math has been loutishly and systematically overlooked in all this grassland sequestration business along this thread and its parentele at forums.randi.org.

Following that we need to get some new 8GT of SOC each year, but we have to replace SOC that deteriorates and also organic matter lose carbon when it degrades from lignine, starch, aminoacids or whatever into fulvic acid, humic acid and all the petrichor-smelling cascade of related substances that make a good fertile soil. In order to match the strokes of wishful thinking shown about this subject, I'm going to suppose that we live in the Planet of the Pink Unicorns and Fruit Candy and that no SOC deteriorates -the soil has embalming properties-, and, in spite of all the evidence that tells me that every micro-organism that produces methane, alcohol or acetic acid has to waste at least 74% of the organic matter just to do unimportant activities like living and reproducing, and only less than 26% remains as organic substances, volatile or not; well, in spite of that, as we live in such a wonderful planet, I'm considering also that 40% of all organic components in plants remain as organic carbon substances in the soil.

With that in mind, we need 20GT of new organic substances per year just to nurture the soil and wash out our gassy sins, and this only to keep the situation as it is. Well, as there are some 4Gha of grasslands, we need, in this ideal and generous analysis, some 5 T of carbon per hectare as a component of new organic substances added each year to the soil.

Well, lets compare it with reality: Suppose we have an hectare of oats in some feracious corner of the Pampas. Then we use fertilizer, irrigation -in case some month is dry- and everything we know to maximize the crop. We do it with total neglect about what agricultural practices do to the soil in the future -a soil that is today an organic optimum, I'm saying this to avoid the typical stupid branching out in the discussion that may come from this-. Well, I get this in one year: six mowing cycles gathering an optimum of 10 tons each time, that is 60 tons of organic produce (not organic substances, and least of all carbon). From those 60 tons a maximum of 8 tons are dried mass excluding ashes. That dried mass contains little lipids so we can say that at most -and being extremely generous as through this whole analysis- there are just 4 tons of carbon in it.

Conclusion: in the planet of Pink Unicorns and Fruit Candy you have to have the best soils, optimum techniques, and abandon your crop on the ground and fight any big animal that wants to eat it, and even doing this we failed in just keeping our CO2 in 400 ppm.

Ridiculous. Utterly and stupidly ridiculous. Only an intense difficulty to perceive reality and falling in love with the purported solutions can make people to even think this is more than a complementary way. That is, as always, it is just plain and simple epistemological hedonism.

[/Thinking "aloud" mode]

I made this analysis for the occasional reader of this forum that may get confused and think that there's any seriousness in some plan involving "saving the planet" by having better soils worldwide. Don't let any poster with an Energizer-bunny attitude to mislead you into error.

In reality soil conservation is the most important aspect and it still amounts to a fraction -a measurable and necessary fraction- in the whole problem.

Soil as carbon sink is just another within dozens of techniques we need to use simultaneously together with emission restraint in order to just curb in part the environmental problem. We have to adapt, for the rest of it. In 50 or 75 year from now other technologies may say differently, but now this is what we have.

 

[Reality Check]

Soil as carbon sink is just another within dozens of techniques we need to use simultaneously together with emission restraint in order to just curb in part the environmental problem.

Another aspect of Savoy's claim is the big problem of somehow making farmers convert to a SOC increasing regime.
It does not look economically reasonable. Lately (2006 to 2011) farmers have been plowing up grasslands in the northern American Plains and planting them in corn and soybeans: Corn and soy wiping out America’s grasslands at fastest pace since the 1930s.
This has the effect of reducing carbon in the soil (perhaps offset by lessening emissions from gasoline by replacing it with biofuels).

As for politically reasonable - just look at the political problems with the Kyoto Protocol!

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I am using simple math on estimates of rates rather than Savoy's unsupported claim in the TED talk. The first 2 figures are rates, Red Baron Farms:

1. The amount of human emissions is 8 Petagrams per year.
2. The amount of carbon taken up by all of the vegetation in the world is about 2.6 Petagrams per year.
3. There is "approximately 240 more Petagrams (Pg) of carbon in the atmosphere than in pre-industrial times".
4. Grasslands currently contain ~20% of global carbon stocks.

Points 1 and 2 together give a minimum requirement that the rate of amount of carbon taken up by all of the vegetation in the world needs to be tripled just to sequester the carbon that we produce.

Point 4 is that grasslands are not all of the vegetation in the world ! Thus the 3-fold figure is much too small. It is more like 15-fold.

Point 3 is that 15-fold is still too small to support Savoy's claim that increasing SOC in grasslands will be able to get us back to pre-industrial levels.

What effect this has on SOC is a different and more complex issue. But it should be obvious that if the rate of amount of carbon taken up by all of the vegetation in the world remains the same then the SOC will not change.

ETA: "Grasslands currently contain ~20% of global carbon stocks." is completely relevant because grasslands have soil and that where most of the carbon stock is located!

Total SOC in the soil is not a rate (needs a Duh! here ).
Changing the total SOC in the soil is a rate. No one thinks that Savoy is stupid enough to say that future emissions will be magically sequestered by a sudden increase in SOC today! What he is claiming is that if you add 1% more SOC each year (a rate!) to grasslands then that will reduce CO2 to pre-industrial levels.

What Cows, Carbon and the Anthropocene: Commentary on Savory TED Video points out is that this claim requires an unreasonable change in the rate of amount of carbon taken up in vegetation and so to soil in grasslands (~15-fold).

OK Lets start from the beginning since you are still missing it.
1) The total emissions has little to do with the net increase in the atmosphere yearly. This is exactly the type of misuse of statistics used by AGW deniers for years, but in reverse. Simple propaganda technique now being used by the sequestration deniers.
2) "Taking up" refers to the CO2 in the atmosphere being converted into plant tissue by way of photosynthesis and other biological processes in the plant. It has absolutely zip zero nada to do with carbon sequestration. Further, the figure represents the current Biomes, not what they would be if restored to health. The figure is meaningless. A plant can't "take up" or sequester anything at all if the plant no longer even exists.
3) 15 fold, 3 fold, whatever fold you want to use, doesn't matter. Land that is sequestering 0 tons of carbon per hectare per year now, restored to land that sequesters 1 ton of carbon per hectare per year (or any other + rate as far as that goes) is an infinity fold increase. (Or undefined fold increase). For example: The Tallgrass prairie biome is over 99% gone. That land is now a net emissions source instead of the net sequestration sink it was. Criticizing holistic management, based on figures taken from the current management and use of the land that doesn't sequester any carbon at all, is a simple logic fallacy any child can figure out. No less ridiculous than basing the maximum speed of a jet by measuring the speed of the fastest bird. Again. Meaningless figures and I think you even realise it. You said, "But it should be obvious that if the rate of amount of carbon taken up by all of the vegetation in the world remains the same then the SOC will not change" Not exactly true, but lets not quibble. The key is that you increase the vegetation and simultaneously increase sequestration rate of SOC from an annual decrease to an annual increase.
4) Again, meaningless figure. The carbon in the grass plant itself has nothing to do with the size of the soil sink. The soil sink is larger than all the vegetation and total atmospheric carbon of the world combined. What matters only is at what rate the atmospheric carbon can be sequestered into that sink. Savory has proven over and over, and confirmed by other scientists, and confirmed by case studies and confirmed even by laypeople that Holistic management (and several other very closely related systems) can convert land that currently sequesters 0 carbon annually into fertile ground capable of sequestering 1 tC per hectare per year or more, sometimes much more if enough water is available.


I feel like I had to keep repeating myself, but there it is. The entire equation used on the blog and every statistic is meaningless for one reason or another, and all it would take is one error to disprove the sequestration deniers. Instead of just one error, every single figure they used is in error due to being used incorrectly. I don't know how to be more emphatic without resorting to hyperbole.

Now, to be fair, proving the deniers incorrect doesn't necessarily prove Savory correct. All I am showing in this post is that their argument is completely wrong. The best scientific evidence supporting Savory's work, besides Savory's own trials, is the work by Teague et all. that I posted earlier.

Just keep in mind, Briske freely admits the failure in his studies to confirm the results of Savory and others was due to experiments that intentionally excluded human management variables, and Teague (who was also part of the Briske team that failed) claims in his study that his success was due to including adaptive management.

That's why in my original post I included this quote:

“Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward” Edison

 

[Reality Check]

OK Lets start from the beginning since you are still missing it.

OK:
1) The total emissions does have a lot to do with the net increase in the atmosphere yearly. Human beings have been increasing the net amount of CO2 atmosphere for decades by emitting CO2! Some of it is absorbed by oceans (my own nitpick about the blog entry) but Cows, Carbon and the Anthropocene: Commentary on Savory TED Video is doing a rough estimate in an informal commentary.

2) "Taking up" refers to the CO2 in the atmosphere being converted into plant tissue by way of photosynthesis and other biological processes in the plant. It has everything to do with carbon sequestration because it is carbon sequestered in the vegetation - .
It is a lot to do with carbon sequestration in soil because that is where the organic carbon in soil basically comes from.

3) 15 fold, 3 fold, whatever fold we calculate, does matter. Too many (as in 3) "folds" and Savory's claim in the video is unreasonable.

4) The carbon in the grass plant itself has everything to do with the size of the soil sink. The carbon in the soil comes primarily from the vegetation AFAIK.


As you say "What matters only is at what rate the atmospheric carbon can be sequestered into that sink." That requires that the atmospheric carbon be first sequestered into the vegetation feeding the soil sink. Then we are back to

• the rate of atmospheric carbon sequestered into the vegetation feeding the soil sink: 2.6 Petagrams per year.
• the rate of human emission: 8 Petagrams per year.
• The backlog to get rid of: "approximately 240 more Petagrams (Pg) of carbon in the atmosphere than in pre-industrial times".

I will repeat myself: The entire "equation" used on the blog and every statistic is a meaningful rough estimate that shows that Savory's claim in the video is not reasonable.

P.S. You do not need to go on about advances in farming techniques increasing the amount of organic carbon in soil. This is obvious.
The question is whether these advances support Savory's claim in the video and the answer is:

Only by indulging in wishful thinking (or to be more blunt, fantasies).
ETA one "wish" in Savory's claim is that somehow every farmer in the world can be made to ignore economic reality (crops can be more profitable than cattle) and forced to use SOC increasing methods. Corn and soy wiping out America’s grasslands at fastest pace since the 1930s.
​

 

[Red Baron Farms]

P.S. You do not need to go on about advances in farming techniques increasing the amount of organic carbon in soil. This is obvious.

Oh good at least we got past that. It's a start.

The question is whether these advances support Savory's claim in the video and the answer is:

Only by indulging in wishful thinking (or to be more blunt, fantasies).
ETA one "wish" in Savory's claim is that somehow every farmer in the world can be made to ignore economic reality (crops can be more profitable than cattle) and forced to use SOC increasing methods.​

Addressed by part 2 of the Holistic management framework. Profitability certainly is a key reason for using Holistic management. That's one reason so many people are adopting it over the conventional model that has much lower profit margins. There doesn't need to be any forcing necessarily unless AGW gets so out of hand that we risk our entire civilization. So far, while it is looking bad and certainly we are "playing with fire" by ignoring the potential dangers as a society, it is still well within our ability to fix IMHO.

Corn and soy wiping out America’s grasslands at fastest pace since the 1930s.

I am very sure that it is bad and getting worse, however your claim as to why is a bit oversimplified to say the least. There still are government policies and subsidies in place encouraging this, while at the same time government policies and grants encouraging the opposite (but on a much smaller scale). Its a very complicated subject actually. If it was only about profitability without other influences, the trend would be in the exact opposite direction IMHO. That's part of the reason I posted the "pastures for PROFIT" link. If it ain't profitable, it just isn't going to be accepted much in the USA. That's certainly correct. The key I think, would be to remove as many hidden costs as possible and let the market forces push the change to more sustainable and profitable agricultural practices. Certainly Joel Salatin is a huge advocate of that. Judging from experience though, more likely the government will actually add more programs and policies to further confound and confuse the issue, just to maintain the semblance of control. That's politics for you. Not much different from subsidizing tobacco farmers while at the same time running anti smoking campaigns.

 

[lenny]

• the rate of atmospheric carbon sequestered into the vegetation feeding the soil sink: 2.6 Petagrams per year.
• the rate of human emission: 8 Petagrams per year.
• The backlog to get rid of: "approximately 240 more Petagrams (Pg) of carbon in the atmosphere than in pre-industrial times".

Regarding the first bullet point. Is that the net amount retained (truly sequestered) or merely the amount 'removed' by plants? Could we have a citation for that cycle please. Thanks.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Another aspect of Savoy's claim is the big problem of somehow making farmers convert to a SOC increasing regime.
It does not look economically reasonable.

I think the idea was taking profit from soil carbon markets. About that, yesterday I found this among this week's documentation to be used in Warsaw: Say No to Soil Carbon Markets!

Lately (2006 to 2011) farmers have been plowing up grasslands in the northern American Plains and planting them in corn and soybeans: Corn and soy wiping out America’s grasslands at fastest pace since the 1930s.
This has the effect of reducing carbon in the soil (perhaps offset by lessening emissions from gasoline by replacing it with biofuels).

As for politically reasonable - just look at the political problems with the Kyoto Protocol!

I fail to see how 1.3 million acres are a problem. Here, in a similar period, some 6 million hectares (13 million acres) were allotted to grow crops just for biofuels. Fortunately, a drop in prices first and an embargo on biofuels from the European Union as retaliation for the confiscation of a large oil company later achieved the madness to be curbed. I don't remember if it was here or in another site, some 3 or 4 years ago, that I estimated 15 years for soy cultivated in our former dry warm forest and 30 years for corn in our dryish Pampas to be the periods that match the carbon massively liberated by soil use change with the carbon saved from fossil fuels use. Until then, it's all environmentally worse, but really big business, though I have to admit that proteins and starch from soy are a by-product that I left out of the equation.

Anyway, what is clear is that little good is to be done by increasing carbon soil and much is to be worsen by decreasing carbon soil so SOC increasing practices are good as they replace other soil deleterious practices. And on the market side I prefer that to be valued at a customer level, like when you go to a restaurant and, unlike when I was a teen, you are offered a biography of the fish or fowl in the menu -"fed with greens and omega-3 rich grains while the piece scouted the land in a stress-free environment"- and not to be traded in the stock exchange as a stand-alone stock.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Regarding the first bullet point. Is that the net amount retained (truly sequestered) or merely the amount 'removed' by plants? Could we have a citation for that cycle please. Thanks.

This pair of images -figure and text- is the most recent reincarnation of the global carbon cycle in an IPCC report (AR5 - 2013). Notice the increase in the net land flux (2.6 GT -or Pg-) over the pre-industrial values and the total for photosynthesis (123 GT) and respiration and fires (118.7GT). Human contribution has grown to 8.9 GT since the previous report. All of them are yearly rates.




You may find this and more here

You also may find interesting chapter 9: Evaluation of Climate Models (I'll come back to you on this very topic around Christmas as I'm now changing my state of knowledge about this whole subject)

 

[lenny]

This pair of images -figure and text- is the most recent reincarnation of the global carbon cycle in an IPCC report (AR5 - 2013).

thanks

(I'll come back to you on this very topic around Christmas as I'm now changing my state of knowledge about this whole subject)

do you think there is much really new methodological content in chapter nine? applying the ideas to CMIP5 was new, of course.

 

[Reality Check]

Addressed by part 2 of the Holistic management framework...

Not addressed at all by the statement "part 2 of the Holistic management(^TM) framework" (added the TM so that you do not get sued, Red Baron Farms ).
If Savory has anything other than wishful thinking (e.g. an actual model that gives actual figures) then you need to cite that rather than a vague "part 2" statement. I suspect that this is to the pamphlet on a web site but hope not.

ETA: There is no part 2 in the Restoring the Climate Through Capture and Storage of Soil Carbon Using Holistic Planned Grazing on the Savory Institute web site.

I will emphasize some assumptions in the pamphlet

• that all grassland will be converted to grazing.
  This is a problem since some grassland is planted in corn, wheat, soybeans, etc. and these crops are economically important. They feed us. They feed cattle. They sustain farmers.
• that it is possible to increase soil organic matter from a value of ~1% to ~40%.
  There are examples of degraded land being improved to levels of ~10% through grazing. I have not seen any example of general grasslands being improved to a level of 40%.
• that the change in grassland management can be done immediately and worldwide.
  It may take the pamphlet's "40 years" just to get started !

ETA2: We should not attribute anything in that pamphlet to Savory though. It is adapted from a chapter in a book and none of the chapter's authors are Savory.

Corn and soy wiping out America’s grasslands at fastest pace since the 1930s is not a claim. It is a citation to one aspect of the many changes that are happening in grasslands, i.e. that changing to crops may reduce SOC.

 

[aleCcowaN]

do you think there is much really new methodological content in chapter nine? applying the ideas to CMIP5 was new, of course.

Not as much as it should. Follow the earth system models within it.

By now I'm just telling this: if a climate model hasn't a feature that allows to reverse the planet rotation, and if a climate model has that feature but it doesn't predict a radically different world after running a 10,000 years simulation with constant greenhouse gases like those in the eighteen's century, then the model has no value to predict a world two degrees warmer or more. To predict where and when, and even if.

But that doesn't prevent probable scenarios like global temperatures quickly raising some 0.3°C during the next four years and start a new long lasting plateau [NIÑO3.4 index raised from -0.4 to positive from October 12th to October 28th as major anomalies in ocean heat contents continue].

 

[CapelDodger]

Global Warming Since 1997 Underestimated by Half
http://www.realclimate.org/index.ph...al-warming-since-1997-underestimated-by-half/

A new study by British and Canadian researchers shows that the global temperature rise of the past 15 years has been greatly underestimated. The reason is the data gaps in the weather station network, especially in the Arctic. If you fill these data gaps using satellite measurements, the warming trend is more than doubled in the widely used HadCRUT4 data, and the much-discussed “warming pause” has virtually disappeared.

No surprises there, then. A slightly unfortunate title, though : Global Surface Warming would be better, I think. We all knew global warming was continuing from the observed energy imbalance.