Climate now ****fting on a continental scale, huge study says
By Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
A landmark climate study released Wednesday re****ts that global warming is
changing the life cycles of thousands of animals and plants - as well as
hundreds of physical systems - worldwide.
It documents rapid glacier melts in North America, South America and
Europe;
trees and plants sprouting leaves much earlier in the spring in Europe,
Asia
and North America; permafrost melting in Asia; and changes in bird
migration
patterns across Europe, North America and Australia, all in response to
rising global temperatures.
Though previous studies have looked at single phenomena or smaller areas,
the latest analysis examines data on a continental scale, says lead author
Cynthia Rosenzweig, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space
Studies in New York.
By analyzing data from each of the Earth's seven continents and the
oceans,
the study paints a clear picture of a world that's been undergoing rapid
transformation in just the past few decades.
In the study in this week's journal Nature, Rosenzweig and her colleagues
compiled data on about 28,800 plant and animal systems and 829 physical
systems, all of which showed documented changes over the past few decades.
The study found that 95% of the observed physical changes, and 90% of the
biological changes, are consistent with warming temperatures.
Some of the physical changes:
?Melting glaciers on all continents, notably in Alaska, Peru and the Alps.
?Earlier breakup and thinning of river and lake ice in Mongolia.
?Declining mountain snowpack in western North America.
Some of the observed effects on living things include:
?Movements of species to higher latitudes and altitudes throughout the
Northern Hemisphere.
?Population of emperor penguins declining 50% on Antarctic Peninsula.
?Advance of spring arrival of long-distance migratory birds in Europe
"It was a real challenge to separate the influence of human-caused
temperature increases from natural climate variations or other confounding
factors, such as land-use changes or pollution," says study co-author
David
Karoly, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne in Victoria,
Australia. Scientists re****ted in the study, however, that "these
temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural
climate variations alone."
But Pat Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato
Institute in Wa****ngton, D.C., says the research "is a retrospective
study,
with very little to say prospectively, given the unevenness of global
warming."
Michaels says that there has been no warming since 1997 and that a recent
study, also published in Nature, found that global warming isn't likely to
get started again for at least another 10 years. "I think the problem with
this study is not in matching the past with the changes but in projecting
the future. "
The data show that changes are most notable in North America, Asia and
Europe ? mainly because many more studies have been done there, Rosenzweig
says.
On the other continents, including South America, Australia and Africa,
documentation of changes in physical and biological systems is sparse,
although there is strong evidence there of human-influenced warming
itself.
The study builds upon the consensus of the IPCC, which in 2007 declared
manmade climate warming "likely" to have discernible effects on biological
and physical systems.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-05-14-climate-study_N.htm?csp=34
--
Pucker your lips for the Apocalypse!
Johnny Asia, Guitarist from the Future
http://music.download.com/johnnyasia
|
