in another *surprise* for scientists, the amazon rainforest enjoys its greenest growth periods after the rain stops and the land drys...in fact, if the claims are upheld, the drier it gets, the greener it gets...

read all about it

pretty cool, eh

Interesting anyman. It actually makes sense when you think about it. Tree roots are probably waterlogged during the wet. Therefore once the soil dries out a bit they grow better. If the soil dried out too much one would presume the trees would die too. Luckily this hasn't happened yet.

I don't know why, anyman, you insist on editorializing *surprise* like it is some monumental statement.

We engage in the study of science because we wish to be surprised.

You must live a life devoid of surprises ... given that you hold in your right hand the answer to every question.

It does make good sense on several levels.

If the wet soils are so wet as to support anaerobic microbes during that season, few nutrients will be released for use by plants. Nitrate will be reduced to nitrous oxides and N2, and escape the soil to the atmosphere.

Aerobic microbes are far more efficient decomposers, and nutrients tied up in organic matter will become available to plants.

If the soils don't go anaerobic, increases in temperature and light may have a lot more to do with it.

Anyman: Do you consider it a failing that scientists admit they don't know a lot?

Global Warming is a disaster aborning because pan-global desiccation will cause... massive invasive jungle overgrowth? One writhes in frustration for seeking any Global Warming scenario extrapolation that doesn't result in the Garden of Eden returning. Think Green not green.

Uncle Al wrote:
"One writhes in frustration for seeking any Global Warming scenario extrapolation that doesn't result in the Garden of Eden returning."

I don't know what you are reading. But I've not heard that description once from a climatologist at UW.

I hear things like "desertification"
I hear things like "increased flooding and landslides"
I hear things like "migration to high latitudes of disease vectors"
I hear things like "loss of tidal plains"

The only one looking forward to a Garden of Eden seems to be you and a bunch of Christian Fundamentalists.

no...not at all

in fact, it is refreshing

the problem is that in the meantime, they (and i exclude myself because i am rarely guilty of the same) are telling us that such and such a paradigm is a fact ('...as sure as the earth moves around the sun')

it is not until someone has the courage either to report or to publish that the acknowledgement comes out that we really didn't know what we were talking about before...or even rarer, that we were wrong

take the H3/big bang issue that has been in the news recently, for example...

they think they have now solved the problem (and they may or may not have) with the most recent explanation...but before that you didn't hear many, or any very loudly, acknowledging that there was much of a problem at all...it was largely ignored in terms of reporting...as are so many other of the problems with the big bang

--john lattanzio, monash u

and then they have their pundits, that claim things like "everything that has ever been tested with regard to the big bang [or its myriad inflationary modifications, etc] has held up and supported the paradigm" (brackets mine, am) (that is a paraphrase rather than a direct quote, but it captures the essential message of its claimants, some of and at least one of whom posts regularly here :-)

that's why i enjoy editorializing *surprise*

btw, i largely agree with your other comments in this thread (and terrytnz's as well)...ie, it does make sense and good sense at that

i also agree with al, that CO2 increase (if such is the case, and whether or not it is manmade) is going to make things greener and will probably lead to more things pleasant than unpleasant

sorry, al...you get lumped with us fundy guys on this one, eh :-)

i mean the "garden of eden" isn't really going to return to this earth...the new one perhaps, but this one is reserved for destruction (and i mean atomization, along with the rest of the present universe :-)

hey, call it a prediction :-)

anyman wrote:
"the problem is that in the meantime, they (and i exclude myself because i am rarely guilty of the same) are telling us that such and such a paradigm is a fact ('...as sure as the earth moves around the sun')"

The above is a demonstration that you don't understand how science works and what the words you read mean.

The paradigm is not what is in question. The sole question is the fine details.

Here's an analogy that may help you understand the problem.

The two of us are standing on the beach looking out and we see a boat. I say ... "wow that sailboat is at least 100 feet long." Later the boat gets closer and I say ... "I guess the boat is only 90 feet long." And you say "your paradigm that it is a sailboat is incorrect."