Forest regrowth, Deep Grass, aragonite gone, microbiological salinity

Barry Brooks on the abc
Science Show says that Remnant rainforest patches in Carpentaria are undergoing "Massive expansion of Woody Vegetation" - he says this is also true of Kakadu, South America...
This is great news for rainforests .. high CO2 will speed their recovery.

the Carpentaria Rock-rat, [on the ICU red list] , seems to have recovered with the increase of rainforest in its area. Ironically, the expansion of its habitat appears to have been assisted by the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by industrial pollution.

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More from Science Magazine:
Grass berms save Railway, which saves the Forest nationalgeographic
.. when hurricanes whiplashed Madagascar in 2000, Karen Freudenberger thought the Fianarantsoa Côte Est (FCE) railroad may have reached the end of its line.
.. The 163-kilometer railway slashes a precipitous path through the dense forest .. Fianarantsoa from the east-coast port of Manakara. ..
The rural communities grow tree crops, such as bananas and coffee, which they transport to market via the train... the farmers purchase rice and bring it back to their villages.
.. After the storms .. Most donors were skeptical about investing significant funds into the remote and rickety line.
.. The cost-benefit analysis showed that without the train, the environmentally friendly agricultural system would be in jeopardy,.. Within 20 years at least 100,000 ha of pristine forest would be cut and burned to make room for rice plantations.
.. The FCE railroad plies a corridor of intact forest that allows animals to migrate between the Ranomafana National Park to the north and the Andringitra National Park to the south.
Grass Grows 4-metre Roots of "Steel"
Freudenberger developed a program to enlist farmers who live and work along the track to grow vetiver hedges to stabilize surrounding slopes.
.. 600 farmers have planted an 3 million vetiver plants in hedges along the tracks of the FCE railroad. Between rows of vetiver, farmers are growing crops ranging from rice and cereals to fruit trees.
..Because vetiver seeds are sterile and the plant's roots grow straight down, the grass stays wherever planted..(The plant can be raised from cuttings.) [other poor farmer steep land berm schemes, in CentralAmerica, have demonstrated superior hurricane resistance to rich-farmer valley bottom fields]
vetiver seems like a wonder plant, anti-erosion, insecticide, and Guerlain makes it a perfume!

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ipsl .. agu
within this century, CO2 at 660ppm may bring the Southern Oceans to undersaturation wrt aragonite (orthorhombic CaCo3). Shells dissolve.

Most threatened are cold-water calcifying organisms, including sea urchins, cold-water corals, coralline algae, and plankton known as pteropods--winged snails that swim through surface waters.

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teev:Ch9: Another Myth Busted: Salinity Cause:
Brian Tunstall & John Passioura deny that dryland Salinity is caused by rising-water table. [see 26/05/06 below]
They claim a microbiological explanation. Lack of Organic carbon in the soil.
Ch9 showed drill & no-turn ploughing, which leave soil in better health.
They interviewed an irrigation farmer, who said he watched carefully and never let water soak below crop-roots. He avoids salinity, but his method seems to confirm rather than refute the "rising water table" theory.
Another example of "projections" leading to effective action, which then results in critics claiming -'There is no problem, so the prediction was faulty'

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Forest regrowth Deep Grass aragonite gone microbiological salinity