Places becoming more livable

[Shared Humanity]

I believe that Co2 emissions will be cut drastically by 2050 (50-80% from today's levels) and eliminated by 2100.

I believe in unicorns and sparkle ponies.

In my opinion, there is actually no evidence of this being likely to occur.

SH, El Cid talked about emissions, and I believe he is correct in that statement.
 Your graph of CO2 ppm in the atm. shows the state variable, whereas emissions are the flow.

Yes. I understand. I simply have less confidence in the accuracy of global emissions data as I do not know how it is calculated. I have far more confidence in a single measure, using a fixed technique.

Do you have a go to site for the global emissions metric?

[El Cid]

I simply have less confidence in the accuracy of global emissions data as I do not know how it is calculated. I have far more confidence in a single measure, using a fixed technique.

Still Co2 levels show stock, emissions show flow. The change in Co2 levels shows something closer to the annual emission numbers (although likely with a lag). Besides, I was talking about the future path of emissions.

[Shared Humanity]

I simply have less confidence in the accuracy of global emissions data as I do not know how it is calculated. I have far more confidence in a single measure, using a fixed technique.

Still Co2 levels show stock, emissions show flow. The change in Co2 levels shows something closer to the annual emission numbers (although likely with a lag). Besides, I was talking about the future path of emissions.

Where do you draw your emissions data?

[Sigmetnow]

New York City's newest park, Little Island, opens to public

The public park on New York City's Hudson River finally opened on May 21 nearly seven years after plans were unveiled, thanks to billionaire media mogul Barry Diller, whose $260 million donation has further transformed the once-derelict West Side of Manhattan.

The island was built on the pillars of the former Pier 54, connected to Manhattan by a walkway that will take visitors from the trendy Meatpacking District to the site where survivors of the Titanic were taken and from where the Lusitania departed.

The West Side, once dominated by a bustling port, deteriorated into industrial eyesores and homeless camps before a revitalization this century converted much of it into magnificent parkland. ...

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/little-island-new-york-city-trnd/index.html

[wdmn]

Don't get me wrong, this park ^ is beautiful, but it feels sort of gimmicky.

It has very little usable space. It is more of a place to "go see," and say you've been there than a real useable green space (to sit, or kick a ball, or have a bbq, or a birthday party, etc) for people who live in the area.

Also, because it is "the end of the line," while the path is lovely it seems a bit sterile.

[Tor Bejnar]

A few years ago my daughter who lived in Manhattan for a decade took me for a walk along an old bit of raised rail turned into the High Line Park .  It certainly looked 'contrived', but it was being well used, as I see about 30 people on the Little Island picture above.  Having lived in NYC for a year myself, I cherished my time in parks where no car were 'in your face' - I often used the John Finley Walk to get to work - it was a sidewalk between the FDR Drive and the East River, but it made life in the City more livable.

High Line Park

[Sigmetnow]

How the giant trees got to New York’s new island park

Little Island, the city’s newest park, is perched over the Hudson River. When it opened, it was full of large, mature trees. What does it take to fill a park out with foliage?

Off the west side of Manhattan, sitting in the Hudson River, is a new New York City public park called Little Island. The $260 million pet project of businessman Barry Diller features 2.4 acres of tree-lined pathways, an amphitheater, and a food court. The idea for Little Island began nearly a decade ago, though it just opened to the public at the end of May. You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s been around longer. The park juts out of the river on concrete tulip-esque columns, and jutting out of the park itself is an array of trees—and not skinny saplings secured with stakes into the ground. These trees look as if they’ve already lived here for some time, and that was by design. …

Creating new, old-looking greenspace within a city isn’t easy.

“If that tree had not been planted immediately, its roots would dry out and it would suffer,” Nielsen explains. There’s still a chance something could happen to the trees in the park—an infestation, disease, a lightning strike—but luckily they are under a two-year warranty. “The trees are the single-largest investment of the entire landscape, and I think they’re also hugely visually important to the site, so their care and feeding, so to speak, is an extremely high priority.”

https://www.fastcompany.com/90645893/how-the-giant-trees-got-to-new-yorks-new-island-park

[be cause]

nowhere better , I suppose .. 20 years ago I predicted woodpeckers in Ireland .. yesterday a pair were photographed next door ..

[Sebastian Jones]

nowhere better , I suppose .. 20 years ago I predicted woodpeckers in Ireland .. yesterday a pair were photographed next door ..

Uh, I don't understand- what happened to Ireland's woodpeckers?

[John Batteen]

https://magill.ie/archive/first-woodpeckers-irish-history-spotted

[Sebastian Jones]

That is so very interesting!
Ireland is so close to 'mainland' Britain.
the absence of woodpeckers must affect the ecology of Ireland's woods.
I wonder what species has been filling the woodpecker niche?

[kassy]

A historical preference for fields? Most of the newer tree cover is relatively recent.


Forest cover is estimated to be at its highest level in over 350 years.

...

Nearly three-quarters of the stocked forest area is less than 30 years of age.

...

at 11.4%, forest cover in Ireland in 2020 was one of the lowest in the EU 27, where the average forest cover was 38.3%; worldwide forest cover was 31.1%

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/57d2a-forestry-facts-and-news/

Most private planted forests are new so i think it is just finally becoming attractive enough for them.

[phelan]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but apparently the tundra in NW Alaska is becoming "more livable" for trees...

These Trees Are Spreading North in Alaska. That’s Not Good
White spruce trees are expanding into the Arctic tundra with stunning speed, with potentially serious consequences both for the region and the world.
https://www.wired.com/story/these-trees-are-spreading-north-in-alaska-thats-not-good/

Writing this month in the journal Nature, Dial and his colleagues put hard numbers on what they discovered in the Alaskan tundra: White spruce, both as individuals and as a population, are growing exponentially there. The population is now moving north at a rate of 2.5 miles per decade, faster than any other conifer treeline that scientists have measured, in what should be one of the most inhospitable places on the planet for a tree.

Usually, spruce seeds don’t travel more than a few hundred feet from a tree. But Dial is finding young white spruce growing from seeds that must have traveled 5 to 7 miles—and over mountains, no less. The population isn’t so much moving north as it is leaping. “These new colonists, you’d think that they're beyond the treeline, they should just be struggling. But they're actually growing really rapidly,” says Dial. “They're happy as pigs in poop—they're just going gangbusters out there in the Arctic tundra and alpine tundra. They're way ahead. They're even doing better than the shrubs.”

Exactly why they’re doing so well demands more research, but Dial speculates that the colonists have access to untapped nutrients in the soil. By contrast, back at the treeline, existing generations of white spruce have already extracted the goodies from the soil, perhaps slowing their march. “If you want to study how forests are going to move, it's probably not appropriate to go to a treeline, because a treeline is where they're kind of stalled out,” says Dial. “If you want to figure out, ‘how can a business do better?’ you probably don't go study a struggling business. You go look for startups that are doing well.”

And, boy, business is booming for white spruce right now. Soil microbes in this part of the Arctic are providing a sort of stimulus package for them. The microbes multiply as the dirt warms, processing nutrients for the trees to use. “Obviously, warming is the driving factor—warmer conditions, longer growing seasons,” says macroscale ecologist Scott Goetz, who studies Arctic greening at Northern Arizona University but wasn’t involved in this new research. “So it's all become much more suitable, and I think nutrients are just part of the story.”

[kassy]

It feels a bit artificial. The original was posted somewhere in the Arctic subforum. Yes it is becoming more livable for these pioneer trees but overall that is bad because it is just a feedback in the climate system.

The woodpeckers are a sign of forest recovery so that hints as an actual improvement.

[kassy]

When a heatwave hits, temperatures in cities can become even more extreme as all that concrete and asphalt absorbs a ton of sunlight.

One Los Angeles neighbourhood is testing out a new strategy to keep itself cool from this phenomenon, called the “urban heat island” effect.

Pacoima, a community in the San Fernando Valley, is painting one million square feet of roads, playgrounds and basketball courts with a reflective paint. The paint doesn’t absorb as much heat as uncoated surfaces would, and project organizers hope that the effects can spread to cool down the whole neighbourhood.

On hot summer days, cities can get up to seven degrees Fahrenheit hotter than their surrounding areas, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Even at night, long after the sun has set, cities can still be up to 5F hotter as absorbed heat radiates back out from roads, buildings and sidewalks, the agency adds.

The paint being used in Pacoima can reflect both visible light and infrared light - meaning heat, according to Fast Company.

Streets in the neighbourhood have been coated in a light-grey paint to bounce sunlight from the dark asphalt which can be a significant source of heat since darker colours absorb more heat than light ones.

The paint also comes in more colourful hues, and areas around a local park have been decked out in blue, white, yellow and brown. Different colours were used to delineate sections of basketball and tennis courts, as well as track and hopscotch courts.

...

Some initial measurements have shown promise. Bloomberg reports that an area of coated pavement was about 10F cooler than non-coated asphalt nearby, during one measurement in the neighbourhood.

That could make a significant difference. Standard pavement can reach up to 150F (67C) on a hot day, according to the EPA, meaning lots of extra heat seeping into the community.

and more:

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/los-angeles-heat-pacoima-pavement-b2148821.html

[phelan]

It feels a bit artificial. The original was posted somewhere in the Arctic subforum. Yes it is becoming more livable for these pioneer trees but overall that is bad because it is just a feedback in the climate system.

The woodpeckers are a sign of forest recovery so that hints as an actual improvement.

I didn't post it because I think it's good.  Perhaps the far north is gradually becoming more livable for all sort of creatures, but that doesn't make it a good thing.  Personally, I need more sunshine than NW Alaska receives most of the year.

If it belongs somewhere else, feel free to move it or remove it, I missed the original.

That said, I found the part about the soil microbes was interesting.  The land is definitely adjusting to the changing climate.

[El Cid]

Yes it is becoming more livable for these pioneer trees but overall that is bad because it is just a feedback in the climate system.

I do not agree. The appearance of trees north of their past area means more trees which means more C sequestration. Gaia is trying to rebalance the C budget. We need many more trees up north

[be cause]

yep .. let nature do it;s thing as much as possible .. it isn't her that's f'ing things .
   
    Regarding my new neighbours , the great spotted woodpeckers . it could well be the improvement to the largely deciduous forest that has developed from an almost totally conifer plantation planted in 1958.
   I almost burned it down in '74 but declared myself the hero for beating it out , Lost some hedge , roasted hundreds of snails and scorched a few young trees . Phew .. hot work at 14 but huge relief . My dad told me later a neighbour had seen the whole thing ..
  Anyway , conifers were thinned several times and the central 2 ha are now all beech , oak , ash etc with a surround of mostly scot's pine . An attractive potential home for some woodpeckers . I'm looking forward to hearing them .
  Of course bird tables are an added attraction .

Also will be interesting to see if our overlapping visits by Black cap subspecies generate a new AYR resident subspecies . I never saw or heard one in my first 40 years , now I'm never out of earshot !

Bats .. just spent dusk watching my flying friends . It's the first time that I've seen pipistrelles here , while there have always been plenty of larger bats so more positives . I provide ideal conditions for billions of insects so although none nested , my skies are host to 100+ house martins pretty much all day as well as a lot of swallows , the adults raising their 3rd broods atm .

The young barn owls have gone quiet . All in all , a very dry year has not had much negative impact here .. most trees seem to have access to the water table through the limestone . A lot of apples on very healthy 100 yr old trees beside the old stone well .. water table has dropped @ 30 cm .. to @ 2 m .

 
 

[kassy]

I didn't post it because I think it's good.  Perhaps the far north is gradually becoming more livable for all sort of creatures, but that doesn't make it a good thing. 

No problem. The article gets a bit more exposure this way and it is interesting.   

Yes it is becoming more livable for these pioneer trees but overall that is bad because it is just a feedback in the climate system.

I do not agree. The appearance of trees north of their past area means more trees which means more C sequestration. Gaia is trying to rebalance the C budget. We need many more trees up north

There are more trees growing there because it is warmer now. Snow melts earlier and growing season is getting longer even relatively far up north.

Trees in the arctic reduce albedo which is bad.

Oh and did you see how small they are? This tree is never going to compensate for all the much bigger trees that burn in Siberia and Canada a bit lower north.

[HapHazard]

Oh and did you see how small they are?

I did. Not much help there.

[neal]

more livable, for some worms, at least

Scientists woke up a 46,000-year-old roundworm from Siberian permafrost

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/07/27/nematode-revived-siberian-permafrost/

[Alexander555]

If you would talk about a place like Ethiopia, and their dam. They started to fill the dam. And it did'nt created much problems downstream. So basically they could use some of that water every year. If you talk about the arid regions. And lets say you would make a network of pools, natural pools. You keep the farmland away from it, so it don't becomes a pool full with toxic algea. Maybe a few km forest near the pool. Just one pipe in , and one pipe out to supply smaller pools. What seeps in the ground you can pump up later when needed. Would that be possible to keep it going ? Or would the evaporation be so high that you lose so much of it ? If they let Egypt pay for their water, that would probably be the best guarantee for them to get it. And they could use the electricity from the dam in a productive way. It could be a big boost for the horn of africa. And that would lower the level of immigration to other places. And most of these arid places were forest before.

[neal]

for beavers at least...but increased arctic methane results

https://wildlife.org/arctic-beavers-may-exacerbate-climate-change/