Soils in the southern hemisphere are drying up.
Read about it here at Science Daily
Word of the day: "Envirotranspiration"
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Aside: 30+ authors on the study! Four is considered a lot for an econ article. What is it about the natural sciences that leads to such a huge number of co-authors on research articles?
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6 comments:
My guess is it has to do with the broad claim that is being made. When you are talking about "large areas of the Southern Hemisphere," you cannot simply grab a handful of dirt from Sydney, Johannesburg, and Rio, then call it a day. Not only would you want to consult researchers studying the areas that you suspect are drying up, but for balance, or completeness, you'd want researchers from areas you don't expect. This is my scientific reasoning, but there could be other concerns.
Perhaps the publish or peril nature of academia has led to a culture of, "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours," such that each author tries to include many others in hopes that they will be included by many others.
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Ryan Ham
(always forget to sign these things)
Although I agree with what Ryan is saying here that in order to cover the whole research area this many authors/co-authors are needed, there may be other reasons. When covering an area this large in such a vast topic of research researchers in Africa may
have completely different findings than those in Brazil. For example, the soils in Sydney are a different type of sol than the soils located in Rio, so they may be drying up for different reasons. These researches may have needed to band together to compare their findings and see what they had in common and see what was different. Comparing their similarities and differences may be what could answer their questions.
jessica moody
Although I agree with what Ryan is saying here that in order to cover the whole research area this many authors/co-authors are needed, there may be other reasons. When covering an area this large in such a vast topic of research researchers in Africa may
have completely different findings than those in Brazil. For example, the soils in Sydney are a different type of sol than the soils located in Rio, so they may be drying up for different reasons. These researches may have needed to band together to compare their findings and see what they had in common and see what was different. Comparing their similarities and differences may be what could answer their questions.
jessica moody
I also agree that it seems to be a lot researchers for just one area but I honestly think that it is completely necessary since they are dealing with the environment and what negative impact could have cause such damage. We should know that even though we might just be looking at land desertification there are still quite a few causes and this will require an in debt research with staff or experts capable of coming up with the best answers and solutions. Also since it is an environmental problem and will obviously have some kind of impact on society I believe that the more brains that are put to work on the problem the faster we can work to stop it.
julia holder
As was mentioned, the scale of the study is very broad, not only geographically but also in terms of related disciplines. Also the implications of drying soils are great and far reaching in terms of the agriculture sector, possibility of drought and as this blog heading even mentions...implication for land rent possibly. so it is understandable that such a large number of authors are involved.
But then again there is always the allure of getting piece of the fame and prestige pie. What is more, the broader topic of climate change is a very hot one and has the focus of a great deal of natural science related professionals.
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