Little People: Will Climate Change Shrink the Species?

TIME ^ | February 24, 2012 | By JEFFREY KLUGER

[Oldeconomybuyer]

If you think there are no new reasons to get freaked out by climate change, try this: There’s at least a theoretical possibility that a warmer and warmer world could lead to tinier and tinier humans. That’s the inevitable conclusion of a just-published study of Siferhippus sandae, the littlest horse that ever lived.

The Siferhippus sandae first appeared about 56 million years ago, and it was never a terribly prepossessing creature, weighing no more than 12 lbs. (5.5 kg). While it was not exactly built for steeplechase running, its skeletal architecture — not to mention its unmistakably equine face — mark it as a great-great-granddaddy of the modern horse.

But while the little critter had a grand evolutionary future in front of it, it came into the world at an unfortunate time — an era known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when a sharp spike in atmospheric CO2 led to a 10º F (5.5º C) rise in global temperature. In geological terms, the PETM didn’t last long — just 175,000 years — but biology moves faster than geology, and plenty of species felt the effects, with some existing ones dying out and other, new ones emerging. The Siferhippus sandae, it turns out, did something else, shrinking by about 30%, to 8.5 lbs (3.9 kg) — or about the size of a house cat — during the first 130,000 years of the PETM.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

[NoGrayZone]

Well, there goes moooo-cheles “get moving” movement!

[RetSignman]

Yeah, if the opposite applied, Eskimos would be GIANTS wouldn’t they?

[VRW Conspirator]

Junk Science Alert!

[mountainlion]

It seems to me that global warming has shrunk the brain size and capacity of all of the believers in the cult.

[Brad from Tennessee]

[. . .it came into the world at an unfortunate time — an era known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when a sharp spike in atmospheric CO2 led to a 10º F (5.5º C) rise in global temperature. . .]

The cave dwellers of that era ignored warnings that their over-sized vehicles, urban sprawl, heavy industry and smoke spewing metropolises would raise the average temperature.

[al baby]

[Yankee]

I just love little people. In fact, I’m nuts over them.

[pabianice]

http://www.amazon.com/Hothouse-Afternoon-Earth-Classics-Fantastic/dp/160010360X

[Ditter]

Stop bragging!

[YankeeReb]

Didn’t Dinosaurs evolve when most of the planet was in a warming phase? Wasn’t the woolly mammoth around during the ice age? Sounds like Time magazine is desperate to be seen as relevant once again.

[freedumb2003]

So it will be just “person tossing?”

[libertarian27]

I’m a 5’10” woman - I’m only this tall because I grew up in the 70’s during the Ice Age (Makes sense...don’t it)

Darn Ice Age - so hard to find tall pants......

[bgill]

Maybe then humans will be able to fit into airplane seats.

[Kickass Conservative]

Until I hear what Matt Roloff has to say about this, I will reserve judgment.

[Hayride]

I don’t know about it shrinking the size of the people but the puppet masters behind the carbon tax scheme want to shrink the size of the population.

[donmeaker]

Israel, in a warm climate, has the shortest average height.

Evolution is hard to predict. It has, on islands, selected both for small elephants, and large rats. First, the variation has to appear, and then the selection has to perfer a given variation. We don’t know if cold weather would select larger mass/surface area or smaller area so that warm winter coats (or burrows) can be provided.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

There’s at least a theoretical possibility that a warmer and warmer world could lead to tinier and tinier humans.

No, there isn't. Even if a warmer global temperature was proven to result in smaller-sized fauna (and that hasn't happened yet), technology already makes natural selection largely irrelevant to humans. And our control over our bodies is only going to become more refined and more powerful - 100 years from now, whether a person is 5 feet tall or 7 feet tall will be decided by that person, not by the temperature.

[Mike Darancette]

Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when a sharp spike in atmospheric CO2 led to a 10º F (5.5º C) rise in global temperature. In geological terms, the PETM didn’t last long — just 175,000 years..

Did the CO2 spike lead to heating or did heating cause the spike?

[a fool in paradise]

Signs say YES.