Global warming threatens biodiversity

Unique marine life in Antarctica will be at risk from an invasion of sharks, crabs and other predators if global warming continues, scientists warn.

Dr. Derocher is a polar bear scientist with the University of Edmonton in Canada. He also serves on PBI's Scientific Advisory Council.
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The various presentations of biased reporting ignore, or are ignorant of, the different reasons for changes in populations. If I thought that there were more bears now than 50 years ago and a reasonable basis to assume this would not change, then no worries. This is not the case.

The bottom line here is that it is an apples and oranges issue. The early estimates of polar bear abundance are a guess. There is no data at all for the 1950-60s. Nothing but guesses. We are sure the populations were being negatively affected by excess harvest (e.g., aircraft hunting, ship hunting,self-killing guns, traps, and no harvest limits). The harvest levels were huge and growing. The resulting low numbers of bears were due only to excess harvest but, again, it was simply a guess as to the number of bears.

After the signing of the International Agreement on Polar Bears in the 1970s, harvests were controlled and the numbers increased.
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There is, however, very strong evidence for a decline in Western Hudson Bay and the Southern Beaufort Sea based on quantitative studies. More recently, scientists working in the Southern Hudson Bay have reported a major decline in the condition of polar bears. A decline in condition was the precursor to the population decline in Western Hudson Bay. There is clear suggestion of a population decline due to over-harvest in Baffin Bay, Kane Basin and possibly Norwegian Bay.
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Look at the messengers: lobby groups for big business say there is no problem.
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Comparing declines caused by harvest followed by recovery from harvest controls to declines from loss of habitat and climate warming are apples and oranges. Ignorant people write ignorant things.

More than 3,000 flying foxes dropped dead, falling from trees in Australia. Giant squid migrated north to commercial fishing grounds off California, gobbling anchovy and hake. Butterflies have gone extinct in the Alps.

While humans debate at U.N. climate change talks in Bali, global warming is already wreaking havoc with nature. Most plants and animals are affected, and the change is occurring too quickly for them to evolve.

"A hell of a lot of species are in big trouble," said Stephen E. Williams, the director of the Centre for Tropical Biodiversity & Climate Change at James Cook University in Australia.

"I don't think there is any doubt we will see a lot of (extinctions)," he said. "But even before a species goes extinct, there are a lot of impacts. Most of the species here in the wet tropics would be reduced to ... 15 percent of their current habitat."
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With warmer weather, 60 percent of plant and animal species are migrating, breeding and blooming earlier in the spring, Parmesan said. But not all are, and that could upset relationships between birds and the insects they feed on as well as insects and the flowers they pollinate.

Forested hillsides usually riotous with reds, oranges and yellows have shown their colors only grudgingly in recent years, with many trees going straight from the dull green of late summer to the rust-brown of late fall with barely a stop at a brighter hue.

"It's nothing like it used to be," said University of Vermont plant biologist Tom Vogelmann, a Vermont native.

He says autumn has become too warm to elicit New England's richest colors.

According to the National Weather Service, temperatures in Burlington have run above the 30-year averages in every September and October for the past four years, save for October 2004, when they were 0.2 degrees below average.
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warmer autumns and winters have been friendly to fungi that attack some trees, particularly the red and sugar maples that provide the most dazzling colors.

"The leaves fall off without ever becoming orange or yellow or red. They just go from green to brown," said Barry Rock, a forestry professor at the University of New Hampshire.

Thousands of walrus have appeared on Alaska's northwest coast in what conservationists are calling a dramatic consequence of global warming melting the Arctic sea ice.

he State of the UK’s Birds 2006 report shows that the wintering populations of some species are declining, principally, it is suggested, because of climate change.

The report, which examines bird population trends, has also highlighted a doubling of the overall numbers of 39 species of waterfowl spending the winter in the UK in the last three decades.

Every winter the UK receives over five million ducks, geese, swans and wading birds, from northern Europe, Greenland, Siberia and Arctic Canada. These birds are attracted to spend the winter in Britain and Ireland because of the relatively mild climate and ice-free conditions.

According to the State of the UK's Birds 2006, the populations of some species, notably wading birds including the black-tailed godwit and the avocet, have increased markedly since the late 1970s. This is largely as a result of conservation action.

However, concerns are growing over the decline in the populations of other regular visitors, including the Greenland European populations of white-fronted geese, shelduck, mallard, pochard, ringed plover, dunlin and turnstone.
Milder winters

The precise reasons for the decline of each species vary, but a common theme appears to be climate change. As winters become milder both in the UK and elsewhere, it appears that some birds are not flying as far as the UK to find suitable conditions: this trend has been particularly noted in Northern Ireland with declines of pochard and Bewick's swan.

Gland, Switzerland – Whales, dolphins and porpoises are facing increasing threats from climate change, according to a new report published by WWF and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) ahead of the 59th meeting of the International Whaling Commission. The report — Whales in hot water? — highlights the growing impacts of climate change on cetaceans. They range from changes in sea temperature and the freshening of the seawater because of melting ice and increased rainfalls, to sea level rise, loss of icy polar habitats and the decline of krill populations in key areas. Krill — a tiny shrimp-like animal that is dependent on sea ice — is the main source of food for many of the great whales. ... “Whales, dolphins and porpoises have some capacity to adapt to their changing environment,” said Mark Simmonds, International Director of Science at WCDS, “but the climate is now changing at such a fast pace that it is unclear to what extent whales and dolphins will be able to adjust, and we believe many populations to be very vulnerable to predicted changes.” Climate change impacts are currently greatest in the Arctic and the Antarctic. According to the report, cetaceans that rely on polar, icy waters for their habitat and food resources, such as belugas, narwhals and bowhead whales, are likely to be dramatically affected by the reduction of sea ice cover.

A warmer climate disrupts the biological clocks of migratory species including bats, dolphins, antelopes or turtles, said Lahcen el Kabiri, deputy head of the UN's Bonn-based Convention on Migratory Species.

The Great Barrier Reef will become "functionally extinct" within decades at the current rate of global warming, while wilder weather is set to affect property values and drive up insurance bills in many Australian coastal communities.
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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil: Global warming could spell the end of the world's largest remaining tropical rain forest, transforming the Amazon into a grassy savanna before end of the century, researchers said Friday.

Jose Antonio Marengo, a meteorologist with Brazil's National Space Research Institute, said that global warming, if left unchecked, will reduce rainfall and raise temperatures substantially in the ecologically rich region.

"We are working with two scenarios: a worst case and a second, more optimistic one," he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

"The worst case scenario sees temperatures rise by 5 to 8 degrees (Celsius) until 2100, while rainfall will decrease between 15 and 20 percent. This setting will transform the Amazon rain forest into a savanna-like landscape," Marengo said.
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By SETH BORENSTEIN AP SCIENCE WRITER WASHINGTON -- Animal and plant species have begun dying off or changing sooner than predicted because of global warming, a review of hundreds of research studies contends. These fast-moving adaptations come as a surprise even to biologists and ecologists because they are occurring so rapidly. At least 70 species of frogs, mostly mountain-dwellers that had nowhere to go to escape the creeping heat, have gone extinct because of climate change, the analysis says. It also reports that between 100 and 200 other cold-dependent animal species, such as penguins and polar bears are in deep trouble. "We are finally seeing species going extinct," said University of Texas biologist Camille Parmesan, author of the study. "Now we've got the evidence. It's here. It's real. This is not just biologists' intuition. It's what's happening." ... Just five years ago biologists, though not complacent, figured the harmful biological effects of global warming were much farther down the road, said Douglas Futuyma, professor of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York in Stony Brook. "I feel as though we are staring crisis in the face," Futuyma said. "It's not just down the road somewhere. It is just hurtling toward us. Anyone who is 10 years old right now is going to be facing a very different and frightening world by the time that they are 50 or 60."