14 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013THIS WEEK
THE planet is getting lusher, and
we are responsible. Carbon dioxide
generated by human activity is
stimulating photosynthesis and
causing a beneficial greening of
the Earth’s surface.
For the first time, researchers
claim to have shown that the
increase in plant cover is due
to this “CO 2 fertilisation effect”
rather than other causes.
However, it remains unclear
whether the effect can counterany negative consequences of
global warming, such as the
spread of deserts.
Recent satellite studies have
shown that the planet is
harbouring more vegetation
overall, but pinning down the
cause has been difficult. Factors
such as higher temperatures,
extra rainfall, and an increase in
atmospheric CO 2 – which helps
plants use water more efficiently –
could all be boosting vegetation.
To home in on the effect of CO 2 ,
Randall Donohue of Australia’snational research institute, the
CSIRO in Canberra, monitored
vegetation at the edges of deserts
in Australia, southern Africa, the
US Southwest, North Africa, the
Middle East and central Asia.
These are regions where there
is ample warmth and sunlight,
but only just enough rainfall for
vegetation to grow, so any change
in plant cover must be the result
of a change in rainfall patterns or
CO 2 levels, or both.
If CO 2 levels were constant, then
the amount of vegetation per unit
of rainfall ought to be constant,
too. However, the team found
that this figure rose by 11 per cent
in these areas between 1982 and
2010, mirroring the rise in CO 2
(Geophysical Research Letters,
doi.org/mqx). Donohue says thislends “strong support” to the
idea that CO 2 fertilisation drove
the greening.
Climate change studies have
predicted that many dry areas will
get drier and that some deserts
will expand. Donohue’s findings
make this less certain.
However, the greening effect
may not apply to the world’s
driest regions. Beth Newingham
of the University of Idaho, Moscow,
recently published the result of
a 10-year experiment involving a
greenhouse set up in the Mojave
desert of Nevada. She found “no
sustained increase in biomass”
when extra CO 2 was pumped into
the greenhouse. “You cannot
assume that all these deserts
respond the same,” she says.
“Enough water needs to be present
for the plants to respond at all.”
The extra plant growth could
have knock-on effects on climate,
Donohue says, by increasing
rainfall, affecting river flows
and changing the likelihood of
wildfires. It will also absorb more
CO 2 from the air, potentially
damping down global warming
but also limiting the CO 2
fertilisation effect itself.
Donohue cannot yet say to
what extent CO 2 fertilisation
will affect vegetation in the
coming decades. But if it proves
to be significant, the future
may be much greener and more
benevolent than many climate
modellers predict. nFred Pearce- More verdant at the margins–
The green flip side
of carbon emissions
Time cloak
deletes chunks
of history
ERASING the past is now easier thanks
to the latest “time cloak”, which
conceals events instead of objects.
The device can’t cloak large-scale
events such as a bank robbery but
it can hide data flowing through an
optical fibre, which could allow secret
messages to be sent without a trace.
“In a sense we’re erasing this data
from history,” says Joseph Lukens atPurdue University in Lafayette,
Indiana. Time cloaks work by slowing
down light in an optical fibre, creating
a gap in the beam. Any outside light
that enters the hole becomes cloaked
when the original beam is sped up.
It’s as if the original beam has been
stitched back together like a spliced
movie, hiding any record that the
extra scene ever happened.
Last year researchers at Cornell
University in Ithaca, New York,
demonstrated the first working time
cloak via a gap lasting 40 trillionths
of a second. But that could only hide a
small blip of information. Now Lukensand colleagues have created a series
of time cloaks in quick succession,
allowing much more information to
be cloaked. A diffraction grating
stretches out a laser beam, producing
a series of gaps. Pulses of light sent
along the fibre at the same time slot
into these. A second grating then
closes the holes, hiding the pulses
from the intended receiver. There is
now no record that the pulses evertraversed the fibre (Nature, DOI:
10.1038/nature12224). This string
of cloaks can hide up to 1.5 gigabytes
per second. “We’re able to actually
cloak real-world data,” says Lukens.
That might be useful for securing
communications, but only once the
data can be uncloaked at the other
end to read the message. Until then,
the cloaks could be used to block
nefarious messages. Paul Kinsler of
Imperial College London, who helped
dream up the idea of a time cloak in
2010, says a stream of cloaks is an
interesting twist on the notion of
concealing one event. Jacob Aron n“The ‘time cloak’ can hide
up to 1.5 gigabytes per
second, enough to cloak
real-world data”EArTHobSErvATory/nASA130608_N_p14_15.indd 14 4/6/13 16:43: