Ozone Research and Vegetative Impacts Worse Case Scenarios by Ray Knighton, USDA

Today I have reproduced the slides used in a presentation by Ray Knighton of the USDA in 2006, which was given as part of the Agricultural Air Quality Task Force Meeting.  Even without his verbal accompaniment, they represent a concise primer for what ozone does to crops, and range in expression from wholly unwarranted silly cheeriness, to thinly veiled panic, as we shall see.

This is the same Ray Knighton referred to in the minutes of last July's annual meeting of the NE-1013, who announced to those academics that there will be no funding to train new scientists to study ozone:

"Reduced funding for ozone research and challenges experienced obtaining funding were also discussed. Concern was voiced and discussed about the future of the study of plant response to ozone as a whole generation of scientists is being lost now due to lack of funding with no new scientists being trained, while this air pollutant continues to be an increasing problem. Ray Knighton gave a presentation via conference call. General budgetary constraints and funding challenges at the federal level were described. Lack of funding for travel was the reason Ray was only able to attend the meeting remotely, as was also the case for most committee members who did not attend in person."

That is pathetic considering that already in 2006, these scientists understood the serious threat ozone poses to our food supply, not to mention, a threat which is growing non-linearly as background levels increase.  But that comes a little later in the show.

Is there any point in embellishing those bullet points?  1.  Ozone travels; 2. the constant background level of ozone adversely impacts crops and forests; and 3.  the regulators understand that they cannot comply with stricter (safe) standards because of inexorably increasingly high background levels.

Keep in mind that anyone who bothered to look during the past three growing seasons would find precisely those symptoms of stippling depicted - and often even more severe chlorosis, necrosis and marginal leaf burn - on virtually every single leaf!

These describe the losses of direct damage from exposure, but far worse occurs when plants that are compromised become more vulnerable to insects, disease and fungus.

Looking at this chart can we expect anything if not skyrocketing food prices?

The next slides are meant to indicate the several methods that scientists have used to determine that ozone is toxic to vegetation.  It isn't just ONE, but many different types of experiments which have all determined the same thing.  This isn't just a couple of ozonistas making wild pronouncements!

In addition to lab work there have been major, long-term field experiments.

Read carefully...it says that modelers overestimated CO2 sequestration because they do not account for O3.  Oops, better be careful...you can get into trouble in the climate change world for suggesting that!

In addition to trees, much work has been done with crops.  Now, why would the USDA devote so many resources to studying ozone impacts and ways to thwart them, if it was an inconsequential threat?  Answer...they wouldn't, if it weren't a significant threat to food supplies.

The following numbers are just plain scary especially when you consider that,  along with everything else in climate science predictions, the real progression is much faster than anyone anticipated.

 

Note:  the results were worse in the field experiments than expected from laboratory tests - probably because of the synergistic effects of other variables, especially the aforementioned insects, disease and fungus that preferentially attack plants damaged from exposure to ozone.

This is where it gets cute - "...if we do not find a solution."  What is the solution?  Oh, probably the end of industrial civilization, why pretend?

The first point is so classic - we have to remain competitive with South America!  Note also:  ALL varieties show at least *some* yield loss.  And I don't know why people continue to be perplexed that plants haven't managed to evolve tolerance to ozone in the past hundred years - how long do they think evolution takes?  I doubt we've got the tens of thousands of years that would be required for plants to evolve, any more than it could take less than that for the corals and shellfish to adjust to ocean acidification in a matter of a few decades.  I think people really need to brush up on natural selection and how LONG that takes!

Yep.  Other kinds of pollution are bad for plants too - but nothing beats ozone.  This was discovered in the 1950's and hasn't changed one iota.

Okay this is where the frantic starts to creep in.  It's not just smaller harvests - it is harvests that don't provide the same amount of nutrition to cows, sheep, pigs and horses.  So the problem becomes magnified.

I kind of like this guy Ray.  I'm sure it wasn't HIS idea to defund ozone research, and besides, parse this next slide.

He makes the obvious disclaimers about how complex the systems are and how difficult it is to attribute effects to any one agent but then with this HUGE *Nevertheless* he segues into "the compelling weight of evidence results from the convergence of results from many various and disparate assessment methods including chamber and free air exposure, crop yield and tree seedling biomass experimental studies, foliar injury data from biomonitoring plots and modeled mature tree growth."

Hey, wasn't I just saying that!  Trees are dying and there is a compelling weight of evidence that ozone is the cause.

The last point in the slide above is absolutely key although I don't know if Mr. Knighton realizes it:  "Due to the non-linear shape of many crop-ozone dose-response curves, we might expect a disproportionately larger effect for each unit increase in global average ozone concentrations."  That, my friends, is another way to describe the precipitous build-up to a tipping point, which judging by the rapidly deteriorating condition of trees, happens to be just about where we are at the moment.

The absurdity has fully arrived.  First of all, you have to wonder...exactly WHAT are the worse case scenarios that may come to pass?  Do these scientists and regulators talk about that, behind closed doors?  Furthermore, even IF there could be genetically altered crops bred to survive in the increasingly poisonous invisible soup created from emissions of fuel and fertilizer - IF - what the hell good is that going to do for the infinitely greater number and variety of WILD plants and trees...vegetation that happens to be essential for life to exist on earth, including our own??  Well, NOTHING that's what!  Look below - he ends by looking forward to "useful products".  Magic potions, perhaps?

I actually have amassed quite a few other new articles, studies, reports and books about ozone and the nitrogen cascade over a busy Christmas...and it's going to take some time to sort through them - so I think I'll post just this for now.

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday!