[CH] OT, but: Global Warming & Extinctions
Rob Solarion (solarion@1starnet.com)
Sat, 4 Jan 2003 20:02:29 -0600
Associated Press, Via The Dallas Morning News, 2 January 2002
By Rick Callahan
Rising global temperatures that have lured plants into early bloom and
birds to nest earlier in the spring are altering the ranges and behavior of
hundreds of plant and animal species worldwide, two studies conclude.
>From North America's mammots to Britain's birds, the findings could be bad
news for species already stressed by habitat loss if predictions of global
warming over the next century pan out, the authors said in the studies,
which appear in Thursday's issue of the journal NATURE.
Other scientists said the studies, which are based largely on research done
previously in Europe and North America, could foretell the extinction of
many species in the coming decades as rising temperatures force them to
retreat or face new competitors.
Alastair Fitter, a professor of biology at the University of York in Great
Britain who has documented the trend toward earlier-blooming flowers in
Britain, said the studies' conclusions that the ranges of hundreds of
species are shifting northward in response to warming temperatures are
disconcerting.
He said the two papers show that plants and animals are already being
affected by global warming, although Earth's average temperature climbed
only about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the last century.
"These papers are the conclusive evidence that the natural world is already
responding in a big way to climate change, even though that change has only
just got going and there is a lot more to come," Dr. Fitter said.
A United Nations panel has predicted that average global temperatures could
rise as much as 10.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century as
heat-trapping gases from industy accumulate in the atmosphere.
Dr. Fitter said that if that occurs, it may drive some plant and animal
species to extinction as their ranges shrink or they are forced to compete
with other species moving into their territory.
Working independently, two research teams reviewed hundreds of published
papers that tracked changes in the range and behavior of plant and animal
species believed caused by human-driven global warming.
Both teams concluded that they had found the "fingerprint" of global
warming on hundreds of species, from insects to birds and mammals, even
after taking into account other possible causes such as habitat loss.
Other scientists said the two studies, in pulling together hundreds of
published scientific papers for two comprehensive analyses, add another
piece of evidence -- along with retreating glaciers, warming oceans and
shrinking snow cover -- that global warming is having an impact on Earth.
Mike Novacek, provost of science of the American Museum of Natural History
in New York, said much of the data in the two papers was based on studies
of wildlife found in North America and the United Kingdom.
New research of plants and animals representing a wider range of Earth's
life would conclusively pin down the evidence, said Dr. NMovacek, who was
not involved in the research.
Camille Parmesan, a biologist at the University of Texas at Austin, worked
with a colleague to review studies that tracked about 1,700 species, often
over several decades. While about half of the species showed no changes in
behavior or range shifts, the changes seen in the other half clearly
pointed to global warming, she said.
"The climate scientists have really shown that global warming is happening.
What we've found is that it's not only happening but it's having a big
impact," she said.
In an analysis of 172 species of plants, birds, butterflies and amphibians,
Ms. Parmesan found that spring events such as egg-laying or flower-blooming
advanced 2.3 days on average each decade.
Her analysis of studies of 99 species of birds, butterflies and alpine
herbs in North America and Europe found that these species' ranges have
shifted northward an average of about 3.8 miles per decade.
Most striking, she said, was the case of the sooty copper, a butterfly
common near Barcelona until recent decades. These days, however, residents
of the Spanish city must travel about 60 miles north to find this butterfly.
Meanwhile, the sooty copper's northern range, which once ended in Austria,
has shifted into Estonia during the last five years, Ms. Parmesan said.
Stanford University researchers reviewed scientific studies that involved
more than 1,400 plant and animal species.
Terry Root, a senior fellow at Stanford's Institute for International
Studies, and five colleagues determined that about 80 percent of those
species have undergone range or behavioral changes probably caused by
global warming.