More like an absurd idea. To assume that global warming fanatics and their quasi-science are correct and then to act on their non-scientific methodology could be the biggest mistake ever made by the human race. Changing the reflectivity of grasses and crops to affect global temperatures. Yea, right. Our most sophisticated computer models can't even predict the path of a hurricane 2 days in advance with any accuracy. Oh it might hit Brownsville or maybe Galveston in 18 hours or it could turn and hit New Orleans in 12 hours if conditions are right. What a joke. And you guys think scientists somewhere can predict global temperature averages by .1 of a degree?? They can't predict tomorrow's temperature closer than several degrees. What about the receding ice around the north pole? OK... What about the growing ice in the Antarctic? Check out this site for growing glaciers around the world.

And if you are wrong and the large number of scientists from a broad range of fields are right that we need to be doing something to counteract measurable rises in the earth's temperatures regardless of where it is coming from if we want to continue enjoying the mild stable weather pattern we have been in globally for around a 150 years?

Halting carbon emissions will not see temperatures reduce before the year 3000, according to the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory.

Contrary to popular opinion, halting carbon emissions will not see temperatures reduce before the year 3000, according to the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory.

Nevertheless, Susan Solomon, who led the research, said cutting emissions remained important.

She added: "People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years - that's not true."

Ms Solomon is lead author of an international team's paper reporting irreversible damage from climate change, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

She defines irreversible as change that would remain for 1,000 years even if humans stopped adding carbon to the atmosphere immediately.

Ms Solomon said: "Climate change is slow, but it is unstoppable - all the more reason to act quickly, so the long-term situation does not get even worse."

In recent years Britain has seen regular instances of flash flooding.

The latest findings were announced as US President Barack Obama ordered reviews that could lead to greater fuel efficiency and cleaner air, saying the Earth's future depends on cutting air pollution.

Alan Robock, from Rutgers University in New Jersey, agreed with the research, adding: "It's not like air pollution where if we turn off a smokestack, in a few days the air is clear.

"It means we have to try even harder to reduce emissions."

In her paper Ms Solomon, a leader of the International Panel on Climate Change and one of the world's best known researchers on the subject, noted that temperatures around the globe have risen and changes in rainfall patterns have been observed in areas around the Mediterranean, southern Africa and south-western North America.

Warmer climate also is causing expansion of the ocean, which is expected to increase with the melting of ice on Greenland and Antarctica, she said.

"I don't think that the very long time scale of the persistence of these effects has been understood," Ms Solomon added.

Global warming has been slowed by the ocean, but that good effect will wane over time with seas eventually helping keep the planet warmer, she said.

Climate change has been driven by gases in the atmosphere that trap heat from solar radiation and raise the planet's temperature.

Carbon dioxide is the most important of those gases because it remains in the air for hundreds of years.

I'd be happy to see forage type plants growing in the Great Plains where the bison herds used to wander through once or twice a year. Of course that was back at the end of the last ice age when the Delaware River froze every year and Valley Forge was a horrible place for an army to try to train and survive.

Wouldn't that be interesting to find out that the slaughtering of the bison in order to "tame" the American native population was the root cause of the end of that ice age and the beginning of this warm period!!! Did the settlement of the Western Hemisphere and the end of natural grazing cause "global warming?" I bet I could make a case for that.

I hope you guys are a little more open to the truth than believing these so-called "scientists". Indeed, in the 70s three of the major global warming authors previously wrote books touting a global cooling crisis. Modern times have been overrun by science that has left the true scientific methods behind in favor of following science that is politically influenced. That translates into following the almighty dollar. Sad but true. If you are open to reading 48 pages of straight talk about the subject check out the paper on the link.
http://www.globalwarminghype.com/upld-book403pdf_.pdf

rdaystrom, please don't make me read 48 pages.

My simple observations are that historically the temps were much cooler for long periods of time following the major eruption of certain volcanoes. If there are no major eruptions for a few hundred years, the mini Ice Age will eventually end and be followed by a gradual warming until the next major eruption. By major I'm talking about Krakatoa sized eruptions.

Yellowstone eruption will take care of global warming.

In the name of equal time, I saw a study yesterday where scientist correlated solar flares and dry weather (warmer, presumably) on the Nile going way back in history. Seems when there is more solar flares its warmer and drier. And, we are heading into a time of increased solar activity, according to scientist.

But, I suspect our green house gasses are still adding to any natural cycles we might be in.

Also saw a NOAA study that says what we have already done to increase warming with our greenhouse gasses will take a thousand years to change back. If we stopped adding today. Ouch.

If we might be able to help, growing grass, why not?

Was it Mark Twain who said, "I have read so much about the ill effects of smoking that I have decided to give up reading"? The literature is plentiful... on all sides of the issue. My own experience and observation is that there is, indeed, a cycle to all things. I have seen beach deposition and erosion follow each other in a seven-year cycle. In the same country there is a seven-year cycle of 'wet' years and 'dry' years (annual total rainfall).
And I have often wondered, what if there is a natural fifty- year cycle of extreme drought? Conceivably, at the end of a seven-year cycle of dry years (the forty-ninth year) one could experience a year of very little or no rain, with consequences of crop failure, starvation and the like. I am sure that volumes would be written, good and great debates will be held and many will seek redemption with or without the urging of their pastors.
I guess that what I wish to urge is that all of us keep an open mind and use our own common sense and experience to "pick sense out of nonsense", (to quote my grandmother).
My own bias is towards the science of things. While it might sound far fetched that the reflective quality of the leaf surface might help mitigate the effects of global warming, so did space exploration sound far fetched to me when I was ten years young.

While I don't doubt that there is an element of truth in a lot of what is being written, I think that as a whole even many of our best scientists have lost the "just the facts" approach and are trying to sell their opinions by selectively using the facts. The media then hypes selective portions of the selective facts on both sides to make an attractive story. Read the NOAA report and you'll see what I'm talking about.
By the way, lawns are only a short-term "sink" for carbon as they do photosynthesis. When the blades decompose, much of the carbon is returned to the atmosphere. Trees are a bit longer-term as they tie up the carbon for a longer time in the wood, but much returns to the atmosphere when they die and decompose. We don't create or destroy carbon - we merely change its form for a while, and nature is very good at keeping the cycle going. Coal and oil are just very-long-term carbon sinks that had their carbon moved back into the cycle by humans burning them.
Even on this forum, there is a form of hypocrisy. Some of the members that really push the organic approach will be among the first to yell "just chop down the tree" when it interferes with growing a lawn. How much carbon do you think goes back into the atmosphere when a fully-mature tree decomposes over a 10-year period? Or even quicker if the tree is burned or chipped up? My favorite is people that tell me I should use 3200 lbs of CGM on my acre property per year, but have no idea whether or not the corn was grown using synthetic fertilizers. If you're going to truly live the organic way instead of just feeling good about doing what some minimally-informed media writer pushing this week's politically-correct agenda says, then think ALL THE WAY THROUGH what you are doing. Don't run away when someone asks you the tough questions, or hide behind "well I can't do anything about the guy that grew the corn". I belong to an organic farm cooperative and I can't begin to tell you how many people run away from the organic products when they find out that the product that is REALLY organic is twice the price of the nonorganic product. The farmer needs to make the same money with the lower yield and higher losses that go with avoiding chemicals if I expect him to be in business next year.

I'd agree that the relatively stable weather pattern we have been in all of our lives has cycles we can see. But, the scientist all agree that in the past (time periods much longer than our lives give us the ability to appreciate in our own experience terms) there have been rapid shifts between stable weather periods and things like ice ages, etc.

And, even on the big picture stuff like that, the earth does have balancing mechanisms. But, the bad news for us is that when you reach the breaking point so that you shift in to fundamentally different weather patterns, it often takes the 'natural" cycles thousands of years to balance things out.

Lastly, on the issue of carbon, of course the lighter colored grasses wouldn't change the amount of carbon which is one of the underlying problems. The suggestion goes to dealing with a by product of that, higher global temperatures. Its a small way to help natural cycles balance out the problem. Apples to oranges on discussing lighter colored grasses' carbon effect. There is no difference there between the shades of grasses. But, the lighter ones might help cool the heat resulting from burning of fossil fuels.

Mabye doing a lot of little things will add up to Mother Earth not having to do nasty things (from human perspective) for eons to balance out changes to the chemistry of the atmosphere.

I could live with greenish gray colored grass if that would help.

For those who claim global warming is just dreamed up by junk scientist, here's a report from 40 years of bird watchers which say things are changing. Whether "man" is causing the warming isn't really the main issue. We are warming. Maybe, if we liked the weather we had we should do what we can to keep things like they were?

Warming Climate Pushing Birds Northward

Tuesday , February 10, 2009

WASHINGTON �"
When it comes to global warming, the canary in the coal mine isn't a canary at all. It's a purple finch.

As the temperature across the U.S. has gotten warmer, the purple finch has been spending its winters more than 400 miles farther north than it used to. And it's not alone.

An Audubon Society study to be released Tuesday found that more than half of 305 birds species in North America, a hodgepodge that includes robins, gulls, chickadees and owls, are spending the winter about 35 miles farther north than they did 40 years ago.

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The purple finch was the biggest northward mover. Its wintering grounds are now more along the latitude of Milwaukee, Wis., instead of Springfield, Mo.

Bird ranges can expand and shift for many reasons, among them urban sprawl, deforestation and the supplemental diet provided by backyard feeders.

But researchers say the only explanation for why so many birds over such a broad area are wintering in more northern locales is global warming.

Over the 40 years covered by the study, the average January temperature in the United States climbed by 4.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

That warming was most pronounced in northern states, which have already recorded an influx of more southern species and could see some northern species retreat into Canada as ranges shift.

"This is as close as science at this scale gets to proof," said Greg Butcher, the lead scientist on the study and the director of bird conservation at the Audubon Society. "It is not what each of these individual birds did. It is the wide diversity of birds that suggests it has something to do with temperature, rather than ecology."

The study provides compelling evidence for what many birders across the country have long recognized �" that many birds are responding to climate change by shifting farther north.

Previous studies of breeding birds in Great Britain and the eastern U.S. have detected similar trends. But the Audubon study covers a broader area and includes many more species.

The study of migration habits from 1966 through 2005 found about one-fourth of the species have moved farther south. But the number moving northward �" 177 species �" is twice that.

The study "shows a very, very large fraction of the wintering birds are shifting" northward, said Terry Root, a biologist at Stanford University. "We don't know for a fact that it is warming. But when one keeps finding the same thing over and over ... we know it is not just a figment of our imagination."

The research is based on data collected during the Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count in early winter. At that time of year, temperature is the primary driver for where birds go and whether they live or die.

To survive the cold, birds need to eat enough during the day to have the energy needed to shiver throughout the night.

Milder winters mean the birds don't need to expend as much energy shivering, and can get by eating less food in the day.

General biology aside, the research can't explain why particular species are moving. That's because changes in temperature affect different birds in different ways.

Some birds will expand their range farther north. For example, the Carolina wren �" the state bird of South Carolina �" has turned into a Yankee, based on Audubon's calculations.

It is now commonly seen in the winter well into New England, as well as its namesake state of South Carolina.

"Twenty years ago, I remember people driving hours to see the one Carolina wren in the state," said Jeff Wells, an ornithologist based in southern Maine. "Now, every year I get two or three just in my area," he said. "Obviously, things have changed."

Other species, such as the purple finch and boreal chickadee, spend their summers in the forests of Canada and fly south into the U.S. for the winter.

Climate change could be playing a role in why they are not flying as far south as they used to, and are no longer as common as they were in states like Maine, Vermont and Wisconsin.

For other species, global warming may not be a major factor in the movements measured by Audubon at all.

The wild turkey was second only to the purple finch in miles moved north �" about 400. But it's likely due to efforts by hunters and state wildlife managers to boost its population.

In other cases, the range shifts are prompting calls to cull some bird populations.

The sandhill crane, a large gray bird that migrates to the southern U.S. for the winter, has a range that expanded about 40 miles north in the last 40 years. This small movement has likely contributed to the bird's population explosion in Tennessee.

The sandhill population has grown to a point that state wildlife officials are considering allowing the bird to be hunted.

"You are seeing it all across the state," said Richard Connors, president of the Tennessee Ornithological Society. "As it increases, there is going to be pressure to hunt it. The bird watchers of Tennessee don't want that."