Could increasing amounts of CO2 cause more foliage in plants?

For a while now scientists have suspected that all the extra CO2 in the air has been having a CO2 fertilization' effect on plants around the world. A study has been conducted from 1982 until now, monitoring arid, low foliage places around the worlds. Some places monitored have been the Southwest corner of North America, parts of the Middle East and Africa, and the Australian Outback. When plants photosynthesize, they use up carbon dioxide and are able to retain more water within themselves. The more water a plant has available for itself, the more leaves it is able to grow. Plants are able to photosynthesize more if they have more available atmospheric carbon dioxide. So with those facts one can reason that If a plant has more Co2 available, it will photosynthesize more; If a plant photosynthesizes more, it will have more water available to itself; If a plant has more water to itself, it will grow more leaves. Seems fairly logical, right? Utilizing satellite imagery, the previously mentioned areas have been monitored over the years and the amount of green in these areas is continually increasing. Many things affect how much foliage a plant will produce, but in these areas the only factor to be really changing is the increasing amount of CO2. So other possibilities of increase in foliage such as, more rain, can be deducted. So this seeming trend of increasing green with the increasing CO2 could eventually very well transform landscapes and ecosystems over time and bring evolution of organisms in a new direction.


Original article:
 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130531105415.htm


Themes of science:
-science is collaborative (it takes several teams of scientists and organizations to conduct such a study)
-science is based on evidence (experiments were conducted)
-science is subject to debate and tentative (even though closely examined, other factors can still affect the outcome of the experiment, and some may argue the results because of this)