[cogitator]

Wildlife seeks cooler climes

There are actually two complimentary papers being discussed. Here is a related quote about the second one:

"In the second study, Terry Root of Stanford University, California, and colleagues also report a temperature-related fingerprint in the behaviour of a range of species."

"They found the changes were most marked at high latitudes and high altitudes, where the largest temperature changes are predicted."

So the average is less (perhaps, given that I haven't read the actual papers) than in the areas most affected by warming. And who's supposed to be very surprised by that?

Here's another perspective:

Warming planet shifts life north and early

""Animals and plants, of all different types, around the globe are feeling the effects of global warming of only 0.6 ºC over the last 100 years," says Root. She says that although wildlife has adapted to climate change in the past, the current rate is ten times faster than previous global swings in temperature."

[Number_Cruncher]

3.8 miles/decade is very slow. It is 38 miles per century, or roughly the distance from Washington to Baltimore. It makes no sense to say species can't adapt to that rate of change.

The modeled rate of temperature change may be 10 times faster than that seen lately, but the observed changes are not fast. 3.8 miles/decade corresponds to 0.025 C/decade in agreement with balloons and satellites. The species movements, which are monitored in the country, seem to disagree with the thermometers located in town and in cities.