Researcher finds green lining to climate change on the range

Out on the plains west of here Thursday, plant physiologist Jack Morgan inspected some grasses growing on a plot surrounded by a hollow hoop beneath an array of small heaters suspended from metal rods. “Can you hear the hissing sound?” he said. “That’s the sound of the CO2 being emitted. It does it at a controlled rate, and we measure it in the middle of that ring.” What Morgan, a rangeland scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Fort Collins, is really trying to measure is how rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere as a result of climate change might alter how grasses and weeds grow in the Western Great Plains – critical information for ranchers and cattle growers who could see their businesses reshaped by climate change. In 2005, Morgan and teams of scientists from Colorado State University and the University of Wyoming set out to simulate climate change on tiny plots of grassland at the USDA High Plains Grassland Research Station near Cheyenne by testing how grasses and weeds in the area react to higher levels of carbon dioxide and greater heat. The results, so far, point to some good news for cattle growers in a changing climate, he said. Morgan’s team has found that increased carbon dioxide levels increase the efficiency of how plants use water, reducing the amount of water grasses and weeds allow to escape into the soil. The teams’ simulations of the warming and higher carbon dioxide levels expected later this century show no change in soil water and an increase in plant growth for warm-season grasses...more

So root for global warming and we will all witness the following scenario:  Ranchers all across the West will apply to the feds for increases in carrying capacity on their allotments, based on...increased plant growth caused by global warming.  The only way they can reject the increase is to deny the global warming is occurring.  At that point I predict the feds will join the ranks of the global warming deniers.  The Cattle Growers will be lobbying hard to show that global warming is real. And, just about that time I'll be shutting down The Westerner for good.