Ecological responses to recent climate change
Abstract: There is now ample evidence of the ecological impacts of recent climate change, from polar terrestrial to tropical marine environments. The responses of both flora and fauna span an array of ecosystems and organizational hierarchies, from the species to the community levels. Despite continued uncertainty as to community and ecosystem trajectories under global change, our review exposes a coherent pattern of ecological change across systems. 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.
(It's got 97 references. Holy cow.)
Here in Central Ohio, we had a very mild winter.
I love it!
What ever we're doing, Lets do more!!!!
Not everyone buys into the enviromentalist groupthink. And those who don't, get vilified.
The climate fluctuates, this happens, one year doesn't necessarily predict the next, one area doesn't necessarily reflect another. The only thing we know for sure is that ice ages last longer than temperate times so we should count ourselves lucky.
"This temperature update presents the NASA satellite measurements of monthly temperature anomalies-the difference between the observed values and the 19791998 mean values. Global satellite measurements are made from a series of orbiting platforms that sense the average temperature in various atmospheric layers. Here, we present the lowest level, which matches nearly perfectly with the mean temperatures measured by weather balloons in the layer between 5,000 and 28,000 feet. The satellite measurements are considered accurate to within 0.01 deg C and provide more uniform coverage of the entire globe than surface measurements, which tend to concentrate over land.
"February 2002: The average global temperature departure was 0.206 deg C, with a Northern Hemisphere departure of 0.307 deg C and a Southern Hemisphere departure of 0.106 deg C.
"Below: Monthly satellite temperatures for the Northern Hemisphere (top) and Southern Hemisphere (bottom). Trend lines indicate statistically significant changes only."
Not only is the "increase" in the northern hemisphere much less than the rate predicted by the global-warming doomsters, it is (partially) offset by a distinct cooling of the southern hemisphere. In any event, nothing in this report or anywhere else can demonstrate that any warming trend--or cooling trend--is of human origin.
Much more likely to be of natural origin; e.g., changes in the solar "constant."
But these people are pursuing a hidden agenda, which is socialist and Luddite. They want to cause a precipitous rash of bad decisions based on panic--decisions which would never be adopted if cool reason held sway.
In sum, my response: 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.
--Boris
Typical liberal environmental science. It is all anecdotal with no firm statistical analysis
HELLO!?!?!?! Have not 99.9% of all thr species of plant and animal life that have existed on the Planet Earth become extinct before man existed?
Since we know the earth goes through natural warming and cooling cycles, and that we are currently in an interglacial period when one would expect natural warming, why does global warming carry a more ominous tone than a study confirming that the sun will rise, winter will arrive, and the tides will indeed come in?
Good! Spring is life. Only a moron would want more dead winter.
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.Hmmmmmm....yet the Europeans Summers of 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998 were much cooler/colder than the norms.
Hmmmmm...yet November - December 2000 set many low temperature records for the nations's Northeast, the Midwest.
Hmmmmm...yet the 'scientists', the 'environmentalists', in the late 1960's to mid 1970's, were advising and warning this nation of the 'coming ice age'.
It's MIGRATE stupid, not EXPAND.
Anyways, does this mean that WARMING IS BAD?
And, if so, does this also mean that COOLING IS GOOD?
Because if both WARMING and COOLING are bad and the only thing we should be happy with is exactly the kind of weather we are having now, than, it will always be bad. There's no way the climate can remain stationary.
These handwringers look to be building on Mann's "hockey stick" graph. Mann's tree ring approach, however, manages to completely miss historic events like the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. (Which is especilly odd when one considers that Mann's sample is limited to the northern hemisphere where these events were particularly pronounced!) It's simply not a valid way to measure global climate.
Not to worry, if it does warm up a little bit we can send ya'll some mesquite trees for your new climate.