CO2 and desertification

Climate researchers have long claimed that the increase of CO2 will increase desertification. Finally, they yield to the obvious reality. A recent article talked about it.

In the article, there is such a passage.

Why did past predictions of rampant desertification prove so wrong? One reason, says Evans, is that researchers came to believe that their standard measure of the dryness of the atmosphere, the aridity index, would reliably predict the potential for vegetation to grow.

The aridity index is the ratio between precipitation and potential moisture loss through evaporation. The lower the ratio, the more arid the conditions. When global CO2 concentrations are unchanging, the read-across to vegetation works fine; but with rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations, plants use moisture more efficiently and their growth no longer reflects the meteorology. 

All experts talk about the importance of CO2. All experts talk about the increase of CO2. One might expect they would put the increase of CO2 in their modeling. Apparently, they didn’t.

Reference

Desertification was supposed to be the ‘greatest environmental challenge of our time.’ Why are experts now worried about greening?

https://thebulletin.org/2024/08/desertification-was-supposed-to-be-the-greatest-environmental-challenge-of-our-time-why-are-experts-now-worried-about-greening/