Confirming what I’ve been going on about for nigh unto 20 years high and rising CO2 in the air is growing more and bushier plants in dry regions of the world. Those bushier long living plants are Good Ground Cover. More and better ground cover is saving topsoil from becoming dust in the wind. The problem is the world of ocean plants in that 70% of this world that is BLUE depend on that dust in the wind and missing it are dying off at incredible rates.

Mar. 25, 2013 — Plenty has been written about concerns over elevated levels of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, but a Kansas State University researcher has found an upside to the higher CO2levels. And it’s been particularly relevant in light of drought that overspread the area in recent months.

“Our experiments have shown that the elevated carbon dioxide that we now have is mitigating the effect that drought has on winter wheat and sorghum and allowing more efficient use of water,” said K-State agronomy professor Mary Beth Kirkham.

Kirkham, who has written a book on the subject, “Elevated Carbon Dioxide: Impacts on Soil and Plant Water Relations,” used data going back to 1958. That’s when the first accurate measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide were made, she said.

“Between 1958 and 2011 (the last year for which scientists have complete data), the carbon dioxide concentration has increased from 316 parts per million to 390 ppm,” she said. “Our experiments showed that higher carbon dioxide compensated for reductions in growth of winter wheat due to drought. Wheat that grew under elevated carbon dioxide (2.4 times ambient) and drought yielded as well as wheat that grew under the ambient level carbon dioxide and well-watered conditions.”

“Due to the increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, it now takes 55 milliliters (mL) less water to produce a gram of sorghum grain than it did in 1958,” she said. “Fifty-five mL is equal to about one-fourth of a cup of water. This may not seem like a lot of water savings, but spread over the large acreage of sorghum grown in Kansas, the more efficient use of water now compared to 1958 should have a large impact.

What author Kirkham doesn’t cover is the profound role this extra water has on the character of the “ground cover” the benefited plants exhibit. That greatly enhanced ground cover is preventing soil from being lost as dust in the wind, that missing dust in the wind is no longer landing in the oceans far away and sustaining plankton blooms. As the evidence clearly shows in lock step with more grass growing on land due to high CO2 the ocean plants and all of sea life face cataclysmic collapse.