Study sees climate upside in greening arid regions

"An upside to climate change? The issue has been blamed for many problems, including more acidic oceans and rising pollen counts, but a study released Friday suggests a benefit: Arid regions are getting greener.

Satellite data since the early 1980s have shown a flourishing of foliage worldwide, and scientists have suspected this change may be due partly to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas emitted by the burning of fossil fuels..

Turns out, they were right because of CO2's "fertilization effect," according to a team of scientists led by Randall Donohue of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Canberra, Australia.

Their mathematical model predicted a foliage increase of 5% to 10%, based on the 14% hike in atmospheric CO2 from 1982 to 2010, for the regions they studied: the southwestern corner of North America, Australia's outback, the Middle East and some parts of Africa."

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