Sunday, August 16, 2015

How green was my NDVI?

That's a question that needs to be answered, says Craig Idso, writing at CATO.org. Because a greener earth, due to climate change, can have very positive effects for the world's poor;
There is no doubt elevated concentrations of atmospheric CO2 lead to enhanced plant photosynthesis and growth. This well-known fact has been confirmed over and over again in literally thousands of laboratory and field studies conducted by scientists over the past several decades. In recent years, however, the growth-enhancing benefits of atmospheric CO2 have been increasingly studied and observed in the real world of nature using Earth-orbiting satellites.
.... at the global level, all recent studies show there has been a significant greening of the planet over the past few decades despite the occurrence of a number of real (and imagined) assaults on Earth’s vegetation, including wildfires, disease, pest outbreaks, deforestation, and climatic changes in temperature and precipitation. Greening has more than compensated for any of the negative effects these phenomena may have had on the global biosphere during that time ....
Meaning more plants for both humans and animals to eat. And those animals can be hunted and eaten by the world's poor. Which brings us to the, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index [NDVI]. Researchers have found, for a large portion of West Africa, ... that “the intensity of poverty (and hence child mortality and nutrition) varies inversely with NDVI,” ....

That is, the higher the NDV Index, the lower the poverty amongst the people.
Because of the very positive connection that exists between landscape greening and atmospheric CO2 enrichment, as discussed earlier, it is quite plausible—if not certain—that the historic and ongoing increase in the air’s CO2 concentration has played a significant role in the contemporaneous reduction in the portion of Earth’s human population that has lived under poverty conditions, which currently stands at 21%, and which [researcher Luigi] Sedda et al. say is “a reduction from 33% in 2000 and 43% in 1990,” citing Ravallion (2012).
Warms the cockles of one's heart?

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