Effects of Climate Warming Already in Evidence

Lycos Environmental News Service ^ | 03/29/2002

[cogitator]

Effects of Climate Warming Already in Evidence

WASHINGTON, DC, March 29, 2002 (ENS) - Ecosystems around the globe are showing the effects of climate warming. Earlier arrival of migrant birds, earlier appearance of butterflies, earlier spawning in amphibians, earlier flowering of plants - spring has been coming sooner every year since the 1960s, researchers reported Wednesday.

The report from German scientists investigates all regions of the globe. They predict some species will vanish because they cannot expand into new areas when their native climate heats up.

"Although we are only at an early stage in the projected trends of global warming, ecological responses to recent climate change are already clearly visible," write Gian-Reto Walther of the University of Hanover, Germany, and colleagues in this week's issue of the journal "Nature."

After reviewing changes in various animal and plant populations over the past 30 years of warming at the end of the 20th century, the authors found "a coherent pattern of ecological change across systems" from the poles to the equatorial seas.

"There is now ample evidence that these recent climatic changes have affected a broad range of organisms with diverse geographical distributions," Walther and his team report.

"The implications of such large scale, consistent responses to relatively low average rates of climate change are large," the researchers warn, adding that, "the projected warming for the coming decades raises even more concern about its ecological and socio-economic consequences."

The Earth's climate has warmed by about 0.6 degrees Celsius over the past 100 years, the researchers note. Starting around 1976, the rate of global warming more than doubled, changing faster than at any other time during the last 1,000 years.

However, average global climate has far less effect on local ecosystems than do local and regional climate changes.

The reproduction of amphibians and reptiles is disrupted by changes in temperature and humidity. In painted turtles, the ration of male to female offspring is related to the mean July temperature, said Walther, and the production of male offspring could be compromised even by modest temperature increases.

In the polar regions, winter freezes are now occurring later and ending earlier, leading to a 10 percent decrease in snow and ice cover since the late 1960s.

These dramatic local changes are having equally dramatic effects on cold weather species such as penguins, seals and polar bears, the researchers found.

Miniscule Southern Ocean crustaceans called krill, a key food source for higher predators such as penguins and other seabirds, whales, seals, as well as a fishery target, are being influenced by climate change. Walther's team found the warming climate is affecting the reproductive grounds of krill by reducing the area of sea ice formed near the Antarctic Peninsula, which leads to both food web and human economic consequences.

Rapid environmental warming has been reported over the last 30 to 50 years at a number of stations in the Antarctic, particularly in the Antarctic Peninsula region and on sub-Antarctic islands, along with changes in precipitation patterns.

Likewise, tropical oceans have increased in temperature by up to eight degrees Celsius over the past 100 years, the research team has found, triggering widespread coral bleaching.

Climate linked invasions of warm weather species into traditionally colder areas includes the immigration of unwanted neighbors - epidemic diseases. "There is much evidence that a steady rise in annual temperatures has been associated with expanding mosquito borne diseases in the highlands of Asia, East Africa and Latin America," the study says.

Geographical differences are evident for both plants and birds, with delayed rather than earlier onset of spring phases in southeastern Europe, including later bird arrival in the Slovak Republic, and a later start of the growing season in the Balkan region, the team has found.

Later onset of autumn changes were recorded, too, but these shifts are less pronounced and show a more variable pattern. In Europe, for example, the length of the growing season has increased in some areas by up to 3.6 days per decade over the past 50 years.

Overall, Walther's team reports, "trends of range changes show remarkable internal consistency between studies relating to glaciers, plant and insect ranges and shifting isotherms," which are lines of constant temperature.

The study concludes that based on the evidence "only 30 years of warmer temperatures at the end of the 20th century have affected the phenology [timing of seasonal activities] of organisms, the range and distribution of species, and the composition and dynamics of communities."

[cogitator]

Daly thinks that he found something "wrong" with the Nenana Ice Classic study, when in fact the data supports other similar data sets that have been published both before and after it. On numerous occasions I have cited the study by John Magnuson of the University of Wisconsin and numerous co-authors that looked at spring thaw/winter freeze records spanning 150 years for 26 lakes and rivers in the Northern Hemisphere. They found a nine/ten day trend of earlier spring thaw/later winter freeze over the 150-year period, about a week for the 20th Century. More recently, Patrick Michaels in the World Climate Report's last issue highlighted a study by Robeson of temperature data for Illinois that also showed a one-week earlier trend for the latest spring freeze. Both of these trends confirm the trend found in the Nenana Ice Classic data. So while there was some variability in that data, the trend still appears valid.

[cogitator]

The funny thing about the Climatic Research Unit's Global Tempreture trend is you only get warming if you believe the data from: 1) over the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia 2) West Africa 3) Central Brazil 4) Polynesia 5) Pacific Ocean west of Mexico and 6) Northeastern Siberia. In other words a bunch of poorly controlled stations (and areas that will benefit from any global warming treaty). The data from North America, Western Europe, and Australia agree with the satellite data which shows no real warming trend over the last 30 years.

I think you forgot about the borehole data, which is global.

------

Twentieth century 'warmest in 500 years'

Studies of temperature records preserved deep in underground rocks show that the Earth has been gradually warming over at least the last 500 years.

And the studies, by scientists in the US and Canada, show that the trend accelerated markedly during the 20th Century, which was the warmest of the past five centuries.

Since 1500, the Earth's temperature has increased by about one degree Celsius, with half of that increase occurring in the last century.

Trend picks up

Almost 80% of the net temperature increase observed occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the five-century change has been 1.1 degrees, with 0.6 recorded since 1900.

The studies, reported in the science journal Nature, are based on analysis of borehole temperatures from 616 sites on every continent except Antarctica.

The scientists lowered sensitive thermometers into holes drilled down from ground level to discover how surface temperature altered in the past. A typical borehole was measured at 10-metre depth intervals down to as far as 600 m.

Records preserved

The technique is possible because of heat conduction, which means that temperature changes at the surface generate "signals" that penetrate subterranean rocks.

The signals from short-term daily or seasonal variations penetrate only a few metres and are rapidly lost. But changes over centuries are preserved in deeper rock, although the signals travel very slowly, penetrating only about 500 metres in 1,000 years.

One of the team, Professor Henry Pollack of the University of Michigan, said: "The upper 500 metres is an archive. Like any historical archive, there are of course missing pages, and the ink has run in a few places.

"But in principle, if you drilled a borehole anywhere on a continent, you could observe a temperature profile and be able to reconstruct what had happened at that location."

The team's work involved calculating averages from all the boreholes investigated, and built on a previous analysis of borehole temperature data from 358 sites. "What we show that is somewhat different is that the total temperature change over the past five centuries has been greater than some of the other methods are showing."

In an accompanying article in Nature, Jonathan Overpeck, of the University of Arizona, Tucson, says the team's results reinforce the forecast for this century: continued warming ahead.

"But they also provide unsettling indications that human alteration of the climate system over the past century will make the reliable prediction of climate change an even tougher business than expected. "Their analysis is the latest of several to indicate that late 20th Century warming is without precedent in the past 400 to 1,000 years.

"We do not know of any combination of natural mechanisms that can explain this phenomenon. So we are left with the likelihood that human-induced global warming is under way."

And he adds a warning. "The results show yet again that the 20th Century record of climate variability is too short and cloaked with human-induced influences to provide a clear indication of natural climate variability.

"Earlier studies may have underestimated the full amplitude of natural decade-to century-scale climate variability."

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In my experience, global warming skeptics that cite the uncertainties in the surface station data usually get somewhat tongue-tied when they read about the borehole data, which fully supports the observed trends.

[Always Right]

In my experience, global warming skeptics that cite the uncertainties in the surface station data usually get somewhat tongue-tied when they read about the borehole data, which fully supports the observed trends.

In my experience Global Warmers cherry-pck data to suit their needs. Global Warmers get tongue-tied when they talk about satellite data, Medieval Warm Period, and the Little Ice Age...

[cogitator]

In my experience Global Warmers cherry-pck data to suit their needs. Global Warmers get tongue-tied when they talk about satellite data, Medieval Warm Period, and the Little Ice Age...

Some might. I won't. I'd be glad to discuss any of these with you in detail. (The Esper tree-ring data recently published was a nice confirmation of the Medieval Warm Period, which pretty much had to have occurred to allow settlement of Greenland by the Vikings.)

You got a favorite?

[LeGrande]

Help! I am not smart enough to figure out whether or not the climate is warming, because all the data looks like random noise to me. I have noticed though that the proponents of global warming state that the sea level will rise, possibly several meters in height. My own calculations indicate that the sea level will stay the same or fall if the temperature rises because of the increased water vapor, but I am mathematically challenged in addition to not being very smart or not nearly as smart as the scientists who make the climate models.

So my proposal to Cogitator is this. I have a place down in Baja on the ocean where I can measure the surface level very accurately. I have access to all kinds of instruments, I have a GPS laser level and some other nifty stuff (I can accurately measure down to a millimeter). So if you can tell me how to do that I would be very appreciative.

I know that what I am asking is not very straight forward when you have to take into consideration the position of the sun and the moon, wind, waves, currents, temperature, barometric pressure, etc. But I do know that compared to predicting the weather, determining the oceans level is child's play. It also seems that some of the predictions of several meters in the next 50 years would be easy to see now, they would be close to a centimeter a month.

I will collect the data over a period of time (I like to go fishing and snorkeling) and then it should be very easy to prove or disprove the validity of global warming and even state how accurate it is. :)

Are you up to the challenge Cogitator?

[cogitator]

Help! I am not smart enough to figure out whether or not the climate is warming, because all the data looks like random noise to me. I have noticed though that the proponents of global warming state that the sea level will rise, possibly several meters in height. My own calculations indicate that the sea level will stay the same or fall if the temperature rises because of the increased water vapor, but I am mathematically challenged in addition to not being very smart or not nearly as smart as the scientists who make the climate models.

You're not telling me something I don't know, LeGrande. In fact, if you want to read a bit more, read this article and thread:

Deciphering Contradictory Antarctic Climate Patterns

particularly: "Counterintuitively, global warming would actually lower sea levels at first. In warmer temperatures, evaporation of ocean water increases and more snow falls, more than offsetting the melting ice at the edges. But over the longer term — perhaps centuries, perhaps thousands of years — prolonged warmth in Antarctica would add to the ocean depths."

which you noted. There are also other factors, such as the thermal expansion of seawater, which could offset a lowering due to increased precipitation, (and impoundment of fresh water in reservoirs). So sea level is not a great proxy measurement by which to confirm or deny global warming.

So my proposal to Cogitator is this. I have a place down in Baja on the ocean where I can measure the surface level very accurately. I have access to all kinds of instruments, I have a GPS laser level and some other nifty stuff (I can accurately measure down to a millimeter). So if you can tell me how to do that I would be very appreciative.

First of all, Baja California and southern California are not great places to do this unless you have a stable offshore platform. Why? Tectonic activity. The Northridge earthquake raised the mountains by Los Angeles 3-4 cm. The San Andreas fault runs through your backyard, doesn't it? When determining sea level rise/fall, you have to remove all the other local phenomena.

I know that what I am asking is not very straight forward when you have to take into consideration the position of the sun and the moon, wind, waves, currents, temperature, barometric pressure, etc. But I do know that compared to predicting the weather, determining the oceans level is child's play. It also seems that some of the predictions of several meters in the next 50 years would be easy to see now, they would be close to a centimeter a month.

Well, if you do it with a method like satellite laser altimetry and take into consideration all of the +/- factors, you get something like this:

I will collect the data over a period of time (I like to go fishing and snorkeling) and then it should be very easy to prove or disprove the validity of global warming and even state how accurate it is. :)

I think that more than one data point is necessary to make a respectable evaluation.

Are you up to the challenge Cogitator?

Usually.

[kidd]

I'm generally opposed to technological fixes that are implemented while underlying problems aren't fixed

There is a great deal of uncertainty what the underlying problem is, if indeed there is a problem. Black soot, however, is certainly undesirable, but you are in error to link it to global warming.

But I do like the idea of black soot controls. Basically, the United States leads in this area. Such controls add to the cost of manufacturing. If third world nations are required to live by the same environmental standards that we are forced to live by, then we would be competing on a more level playing field.

[cogitator]

There is a great deal of uncertainty what the underlying problem is, if indeed there is a problem. Black soot, however, is certainly undesirable, but you are in error to link it to global warming.

I am?

Soot Called Major Cause of Global Warming

"STANFORD, California, February 8, 2001 (ENS) - Soot, the familiar black residue that coats fireplaces and darkens truck exhaust, may be a leading cause of global warming. A study in the current issue of the journal "Nature" [February 2001] indicates that soot may be the second biggest contributor to global warming - just behind the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide."

Soot in the Greenhouse (a commentary from the Nature issue referenced above)

"According to the traditional view of global heat balance, greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide warm the Earth by trapping infrared (low-frequency) radiation, while aerosol particles keep it cool by bouncing visible and ultraviolet (high-frequency) radiation back into space. This balance is upset by the injection of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, which are almost certainly causing a global temperature rise.

Now it seems that air pollution is dealing the global heat balance a double-whammy. According to research by Mark Jacobson in this issue, black-carbon (soot) emissions from the burning of biomass and fossil fuels are interfering with the reflectivity of aerosols, darkening their colour so that they absorb more radiation. This reduces their cooling effect to such an extent that black carbon may be the second biggest cause of global warming after carbon dioxide."

Global Warming in the 21st Century: An Alternative Scenario

"Aerosols. It is often assumed (IPCC 1996) that aerosol forcing will become more negative in the future, which would be true if all aerosols increased in present proportions. However, it is just as likely that aerosol forcing will become less negative, e.g., if sulfates decrease relative to black carbon. Black carbon reduces aerosol albedo, causes a semi-direct reduction of cloud cover, and reduces cloud particle albedo. All these effects cause warming. Conceivably a reduction of climate forcing by 0.5 W/m² or more could be obtained by reducing black carbon emissions from diesel fuel and coal. This might become easier in the future with more energy provided via electricity grids from power plants. But quantitative understanding of the absorbing aerosol role in climate change is required to permit reliable policy recommendations."

THOMPSON AMENDMENT STRENGTHENS GLOBAL WARMING BILL TO TACKLE BLACK SOOT POLLUTION (I think this was August 2, 2001, based on the URL)

I've been wrong before, but on this one I think I'm right.

[LeGrande]

Let me see if I have this right. Global warming can cause the worlds oceans to rise or fall or stay the same? (The article and graph was very interesting, thanks.)

I have heard it also claimed that global warming can cause wild swings in weather patterns (both hot and cold) or moderate the weather patterns or keep them the same.

So is there anything that can definitively prove global warming or cooling? It seems to me that even a downturn in all the measured temperatures for a few years could could be explained away as a temporary aberration. I am a professional gambler (day trader) and I look for trends and aberrations all the time and all the data that I have seen looks just like random noise. Furthermore It seems that all the data is well within a normalized range and that trying to predict it is foolish.

It would be nice if Mankind were actually changing the climate because that means that we can eventually optimize it for our benefit. :)

I had a trap set for you that you deftly walked away from :)

[LeGrande]

My last reply was too you cogitator :) or should we call you instigator?

[MusicDude_Rep]

This so called topic is not worth the effort of this web site. Anybody with knowledge knows that it the earth's cycle, deal with it everyone.

[Bernard Marx]

Get back to us when you have a few millennia of solid, corroborrated data...then we might begin to decide if there's a problem.

I fear you greatly underestimate the "Chicken Little" Sheeple phenomenon.

[cogitator]

My last reply was too you cogitator :) or should we call you instigator?>

If I had to change, I'd prefer "investigator".

[cogitator]

Let me see if I have this right. Global warming can cause the worlds oceans to rise or fall or stay the same? (The article and graph was very interesting, thanks.)

You're welcome, and you're right (short-term). Taking the long-term view of 1000s and 10,000s of years, global warming will cause sea level to rise.

I have heard it also claimed that global warming can cause wild swings in weather patterns (both hot and cold) or moderate the weather patterns or keep them the same.

I've read similar.

So is there anything that can definitively prove global warming or cooling? It seems to me that even a downturn in all the measured temperatures for a few years could could be explained away as a temporary aberration. I am a professional gambler (day trader) and I look for trends and aberrations all the time and all the data that I have seen looks just like random noise. Furthermore It seems that all the data is well within a normalized range and that trying to predict it is foolish.

One of the nicest "proofs" is stratospheric cooling, which is observed by satellites. The stratosphere warms and cools radiatively. It cools via radiation to space; it warms by receiving longwave radiation from the Earth's surface. If an increasing amount of longwave radiation is being trapped near the Earth's surface by greenhouse gases, the stratosphere should cool. And that is exactly what the satellite data shows (and these are the same satellites that provide a different dataset that is constantly cited as indicating that no significant warming is taking place).

Another example is the freeze/thaw data that is showing trends toward earlier spring and later winter freeze, i.e. shorter winters.

It would be nice if Mankind were actually changing the climate because that means that we can eventually optimize it for our benefit. :)

What is it they say about absolute power?

I had a trap set for you that you deftly walked away from :)

Inadvertently, I assure you.

[phalynx]

REMEMBER!!!

Predicting the future weather from a 130 year sample out of 4.5 billion is identical to asking 1 likely voter who they would vote for in a Presidential election and making a prediction of the outcome with the results.

[GOP_1900AD]

What sort of Earth Scientist are you? Weren't you aware that the San Andreas Fault ends north of the Mexican border? That's because there is a triple junction there, with a subduction zone paralleling the Mexican mainland along its west coast, and a weak oceanic ridge / spreading center down the middle of the Sea of Cortez. In fact Baja is quite stable, with little tectonic activity of note with the exception of the extreme northern portion. Most of Baja is eroding into the sea and within a couple of million years will be a flatish area not unlike the east coast of the US (at least geologically speaking). It is becoming a stable margin.

[tomakaze]

RE:that indicate early occurrence of spring.
 
Where's the related stuff on winter ending late? sounds to me like the calender just needs to be shuffled.

[Joe_October]

Regarding your chart of data, I wonder what the trend would be if you eliminated just one of those data points in the 1998 time frame. Those are obviously clunkers and clearly out of family based on the chart. I would have to have that data confirmed before I bought it blindly.

My guess is this would show COOLING in both hemispheres. That would be terrible for the environmental movement.

[kidd]

You answered your own question:

"quantitative understanding of the absorbing aerosol role in climate change is required to permit reliable policy recommendations"

read=> This is a possibility, but we have no data to prove it.

IPCC scientists believe that atmospheric soot has relatively little effect on world climate (IPCC, "Climate Change 1995" and Jan 21, 2002). Jacobson's studies do not include sulfates, which offset the effects of atmospheric black soot (LBL and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Research Review, 1992). Jacobson's study provides no discusion of atmospheric black soot loading, no discussion of night time radiation release, and no discussion of soot loading historical trends in relation to observed warming trends. It simply observes that soot absorbs radiation (a well known fact) and then he performed some very simplistic modelling. Its almost as if he had a desired result in mind and used whatever methods he could to get that result.

I won't deny the benefits of reducing soot emmisions for cleaner air, but soot as a contributor to global warming is highly speculative at this point.

Secondly, I don't think the international community will buy into this. They will eventually realize it means that third world nations will have to live up to United States soot emmision standards. Since the unstated goal of Kyoto and its supporters is global wealth redistribution, and soot emmisions would end up hurting third world economies but not the US, this will never gain acceptance.

[cogitator]

What sort of Earth Scientist are you? Weren't you aware that the San Andreas Fault ends north of the Mexican border?

I'm not an earth scientist. My reply to LeGrande was quite casual and non-specific. Saying "the San Andreas Fault is in your backyard" isn't equivalent to providing an exact location. I was actually thinking of the spreading center in the Sea of Cortez as part of the San Andreas system, so if it meets the San Andreas at the triple junction that's what I was thinking.

I also thought that Baja was somewhat earthquake-prone, but your reply indicates that's not the case. I was thinking of some of the earthquakes that occur in the El Centro vicinity (my father used to go to El Centro for business).

I even remember seeing a picture similar to the one on this page:

The Imperial Valley Earthquake of October 15, 1979

That's because there is a triple junction there, with a subduction zone paralleling the Mexican mainland along its west coast,

That's the subduction zone I was thinking about.

and a weak oceanic ridge / spreading center down the middle of the Sea of Cortez. In fact Baja is quite stable, with little tectonic activity of note with the exception of the extreme northern portion. Most of Baja is eroding into the sea and within a couple of million years will be a flatish area not unlike the east coast of the US (at least geologically speaking). It is becoming a stable margin.

That does adjust my idea that Baja California wouldn't be a good place to measure sea level rise due to tectonic activity. I had thought that it was an extension of the basin and range province in California, and it's obviously a different geological setting. Thanks for the correction.