North Atlantic current could be slowing naturally

clipped from environment.newscientist.com Global warming may not have caused sluggish Atlantic Judging the effect of climate change on ocean currents could take longer than we thought. The circulation of warm water in the North Atlantic is suspected to be slowing, and the worry is that global warming is to blame. To investigate this, Carl Wunsch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used observations taken from buoys to build a model of Atlantic circulation. It suggested that currents could speed up or slow down naturally by a greater amount than the suspected slowdown linked to global warming, and such changes could persist over months or even years (Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo126). It will take decades of observations to account for these effects, Wunsch warns.

IPCC Synthesis "...abrupt or irreversible climate changes and impacts..."

Heart-heavy reading, with an impact like the doctor telling you that you have a very serious problem:

clipped from abc.net.au Global warming could be irreversible: IPCC Posted 2 hours 48 minutes ago — AAP The UN's Nobel-winning panel on climate change completed a draft report that said the consequences of global warming could be "irreversible". The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) encapsulates a massive review of the global warming issue, with the goal of guiding policy-makers for the next five years. Human activities "could lead to abrupt or irreversible climate changes and impacts," the agreed text said. The so-called synthesis report summarises the main points from three massive documents issued this year covering the evidence for climate change; the present and possible future impacts of it; and the options for tackling the peril. After Saturday, attention will shift to a meeting in Bali, Indonesia, next month. Governments will try to set down a 'roadmap' for negotiations that will end in a deal to cut carbon emissions and help developing nations adapt to climate change.

2:39 AM: Well, that was the ABC carrying AAP. A quick Google shows that the Brisbane Times are the only other media to pick up this story so far. There's a lot more detail, starting with the death-knell for climate change denialism:

The IPCC experts agreed that the rise in Earth's temperature observed in the past few decades was principally due to human causes, not natural ones, as "climate skeptics" often aver.

The impacts of climate change are already visible, in the form of retreating glaciers and snow loss in alpine regions, thinning Arctic summer sea ice and thawing permafrost, according to predictions in the three IPCC reports issued earlier this year.

By 2100, global average surface temperatures could rise by between 1.1 C (1.98 F) and 6.4 C (11.52 F) compared to 1980-99 levels, while sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres (7.2 and 23.2 inches), according to the IPCC's forecast.

Heatwaves, rainstorms, drought, tropical cyclones and surges in sea level are among the events expected to become more frequent, more widespread and/or more intense this century.

As a result, water shortages, hunger, flooding and damage to homes will be a heightened threat.

"All countries" will be affected, says the IPCC. Those bearing the brunt, though, will be poor countries which incidentally bear the least responsibility for creating the problem.

Yan Hong, deputy secretary of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), one of the IPCC's two parent bodies, warned on Monday that climate change bore "potential implications for world peace" by intensifying squabbles over water, food and energy.

"It could also lead to massive population resettlement, especially to urban areas that may not have capacity to shelter, feed and employ them," he said.

The IPCC won this year's Nobel Peace Prize alongside climate campaigner and former US vice president Al Gore.

The panel, comprising specialists in atmospheric chemistry, ocean biology, glaciation, economics and many other disciplines, issues regular reviews, called assessment reports, on global warming.

It has been widely praised for the impartiality and objectivity of its reports, although this year some experts have said its review process may be too conservative and slow-moving to assess what now transpires to be a fast-moving problem.

This year's is the fourth assessment report since the IPCC was established in 1988 by the WMO and UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

© 2007 AFP

Arctic melt drives Alaskan Walrus onto land

The Warlus are shifting onto the land. "The Big question is, whether they'll find sufficient prey where they are looking".

Clip stolen from Pokkets:

clipped from www.mail.com By DAN JOLING Thousands of walrus have appeared on Alaska's northwest coast in what conservationists are calling a dramatic consequence of global warming melting the Arctic sea ice Alaska's walrus, especially breeding females, in summer and fall are usually found on the Arctic ice pack. But the lowest summer ice cap on record put sea ice far north of the outer continental shelf, the shallow, life-rich shelf of ocean bottom in the Bering and Chukchi seas Walrus feed on clams, snails and other bottom dwellers. Given the choice between an ice platform over water beyond their 630-foot diving range or gathering spots on shore, thousands of walrus picked Alaska's rocky beaches "It looks to me like animals are shifting their distribution to find prey," said Tim Ragen, executive director of the federal Marine Mammal Commission. "The big question is whether they will be able to find sufficient prey in areas where they are looking." Walrus need either ice or land to rest they cannot swim indefinitely

Polar bears on the way out

U.S. Ge­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey sci­en­tists do not hold out much hope that car­bon di­ox­ide can be turned around in time to help the po­lar bears...

clipped from www.world-science.net Report: Most polar bears to die out by 2050 Two-thirds of the world’s po­lar bears will be killed off by 2050 — and the en­tire popula­t­ion gone from Alas­ka — be­cause of thin­ning sea ice from glob­al warm­ing in the Arc­tic, U.S. gov­ern­ment sci­en­tists fore­cast Fri­day. Only in the north­ern Ca­na­di­an Arc­tic is­lands and the west coast of Green­land are any of the world’s 16,000 po­lar bears ex­pected to sur­vive through the end of the cen­tu­ry, said the U.S. Ge­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey, which is the sci­en­tif­ic arm of the In­te­ri­or De­part­ment. USGS pro­jects that po­lar bears dur­ing the next half-cen­tu­ry will dis­ap­pear along the north coasts of Alas­ka and Rus­sia and lose 42 per­cent of the Arc­tic range they need to live in dur­ing sum­mer in the Po­lar Ba­sin when they hunt and breed. A po­lar bear’s life usu­ally lasts about 30 years. Sci­en­tists do not hold out much hope that car­bon di­ox­ide can be turned around in time to help the po­lar bears.

What happens after global warming?

So this century is going to be a scorcher for Australia, but the next one is going to see Australia become a (relatively) desirable place to live for populations fleeing the big freeze:

clipped from www.abc.net.au A new study from the Australian National University (ANU) has found that this country may not be as severely affected by a new ice age as countries in the Northern Hemisphere. "There are some fears that warming in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly around the Greenland ice sheet, might cause quite a bit of meltwater to come into the North Atlantic Ocean," he said. "That might change the salinity of the water there and stop what's called 'the great conveyor belt of the oceans' forming deep water that releases an enormous amount of heat that keeps Europe out of an ice age, essentially. "So if global warming does stop this circulation from occurring, then we could potentially have a new ice age in Europe." He says that finding lends support to a theory that heat will accumulate in the Southern Hemisphere if there is cooling in the north. ...supports a theory called the bipolar seesaw, which has to do with where heat goes on the planet when the conveyor belt is operating or not operating,"...

Global warming boon for brain-eating amoeba

Sensational headline — one with some basis in fact:

"This is definitely something we need to track," said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better," Beach said. "In future decades, as temperatures rise, we'd expect to see more cases."

The villain is a killer amoeba, Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL'-erh-eye), that enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die. The good news is that it has only killed six boys and young men this year, the bad news is that this is a spike; it has killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004.

The other bad news is that it's only getting hotter.

Global Warning Climate Change

Torres Strait Islands drowning

This is going to disappoint those denialists who make money mocking predictions of rising sea levels swallowing up low lying islands.

clipped from www.news.com.au GLOBAL warming is not just a theory in Torres Strait – it is lapping at people's doorsteps. The phenomenon is a visible reality as rising sea levels threaten to erase centuries-old island communities. Roads have been swallowed whole, buildings washed out, graveyards swamped and houses flooded in six of the most vulnerable low-lying island communities. Swamped ... Helen Mosby and her son Josiah walk along what used to be a road on Yorke Island / Brian Cassey Authorities have ordered evacuation and relocation plans for more than 2000 people who face losing their land and livelihood from the invading sea. Some parts of the most vulnerable islands – Masig (Yorke), Poruma (Coconut), Warraber, Yam, Saibai and Boigu – are today less than 1m above sea level. The Yorke Island church – more than 50m inland from the high-tide mark –was last year inundated while more than 60m of land on Coconut Island has been consumed since 2000. Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Global warming shapes society. Part 1 - Migration

One of the major effects of global warming is adjusted species-range. Plants and animals evolve to survive in a particular climate, and when it changes quickly species follow their preferred climate travelling up the latitudes towards their closest pole, as the planet heats up. They change their range. While many species tend to travel north or south, the only way is up for the American pika - their 1200 years migration from the great American plains has now found them high up in alpine terrain.

Which brings us to us. We are a species too, and we have our range, which is currently every continent bar Antarctica. Yet in the nascence of our evolution as Homo sapiens sapiens, around 150,000 years ago, our range was restricted to the Rift Valley in central Africa - for 50,000 happy years. What happened to make us leave the comfy ancestral home?

Climate change is what happened. :::[Vanity Fair: Out of Africa]

What set these migrations in motion? Climate change—today's big threat—seems to have had a long history of tormenting our species. Around 70,000 years ago it was getting very nippy in the northern part of the globe, with ice sheets bearing down on Seattle and New York; this was the last Ice Age. At that time, though, our species, Homo sapiens, was still limited to Africa; we were very much homebodies. But the encroaching Ice Age, perhaps coupled with the eruption of a super-volcano named Toba, in Sumatra, dried out the tropics and nearly decimated the early human population.

[...]

And then something happened. It began slowly, with only a few hints of the explosion to come: The first stirrings were art—tangible evidence of advanced, abstract thought—and a significant improvement in the types of tools humans made. Then, around 50,000 years ago, all hell broke loose. The human population began to expand, first in Africa, then leaving the homeland to spread into Eurasia. Within a couple of thousand years we had reached Australia, walking along the coast of South Asia. A slightly later wave of expansion into the Middle East, around 45,000 years ago, was aided by a brief damp period in the Sahara. Within 15,000 years of the exodus from Africa our species had entered Europe, defeating the Neanderthals in the process.

From the beginning climate change has had an all pervasive influence on our global migrations. And indeed, even on the music of U2. :::[Vanity Fair: Mommy, where Do Bonos Come From?]



The maternal ancestors of Africa-issue guest editor Bono were, like Graydon's, part of the second major migratory wave out of Africa. They moved northward out of the Near East, entering Europe around 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. During the worst of the last ice age, about 15,000 years ago, these ancestors were pushed into Iberia. After the ice age, Bono's ancestors moved northward and westward to populate the British Isles and Scandinavia.

(I always thought I could hear the atavistic strains of the windblown Iberian tundra of 15,000 BCE in New Year's Day).

Our history is one of being shaped by climate change, it's quite ironic that we now shape the climate ourselves. I wondered how it would all turn out:



Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Arctic plants can survive climate change

Expanded north-south habitants of plants and ranges of animals is going to be one of the features of a shift to a warmer world.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Arctic ice no barrier for plants Arctic plant species can travel vast distances, researchers suggest Arctic plants are able to migrate the distances needed to survive changes to the climate, scientists have suggested. Habitats are expected to shift further north as the planet warms, and plants' inability to move quickly enough has been a cause for concern. But researchers, writing in the journal Science, suggest seeds can be carried vast distances by the wind and sea ice. The biggest challenge, they added, was likely to be their ability to establish themselves in the new habitat. Researchers from Norway and France analysed more than 4,000 samples of nine flowering plant species found on the remote Svalbard islands inside the Arctic Circle. By analysing the genetic fingerprints of the plants, the team reconstructed past plant colonization and decline in the area. Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Sydney storms drive oil tanker aground

Well, the drought has broken. I can hear it pounding outside my window. The rain has been intense for the last three days.

clipped from www.smh.com.au Fears ship could break up Huge bulk carrier with 700 tonnes of fuel runs aground in Newcastle. Audio slideshow: Pasha Bulker aground Video: View from the shore Iemma declares natural disaster Wild weather holiday warning Environment at risk Video: Rescue under way Photos: Winds pound Sydney Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Climate change: In graphics

Graphic depictions of the IPPCs predictions for emissions scenarios for the turn of the century. One way or another it is going to be hotter.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk It is "very likely" that human activity is the cause for climate change, scientists from over 130 countries have concluded. The graphics below illustrate their predictions on just how much global temperatures may rise over the next century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that temperatures are most likely to rise by 1.8C-4C by 2100. But the possible range is much greater; 1.1C-6.4C. The maps above show how a range of three different scenarios will affect different parts of the planet. The emissions scenarios, A1B, A2, B1, used to create the maps above, are based on a range of detailed economic and technological data. These versions of the future consider different population increases, fossil and alternative fuel use, and consequent CO2 increases. The broad range of outcomes they show is displayed in the charts below. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas, its rise since the industrial revolution is clear. Burning coal, using oil and deforestation Global Warning Climate Change

Global warming terrorism will see more exploding trees

What's summer without a bushfire or two? Indeed, some of our plant life has evolved to germinate as a result of bushfire, but bushfires all year round would be an entirely different thing.

Overseas readers may not know this, but the eucalyptus tree has a such a high oil content that they virtually explode in the path of an approaching bushfire that has reached such an intensity it is crowning.

clipped from www.smh.com.au Unless action is taken now to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, Australia will be unable to manage future catastrophic bushfires, leading climate scientists have warned. The co-director of the University of NSW's climate change research centre, Andy Pitman, says there will be a 100 to 200 per cent increase in bushfire risk by 2100 if Australia continues on its path of high emissions. Professor Pitman said the nation's governments would be at a loss to adapt to such a scenario. But if Australia was able to meet the low emission guidelines set by the inter-governmental panel on climate change, the increase in bushfire risk would be just 20 to 30 per cent by 2100, he said. Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Aboriginal weathermen say drought breaking soon

There is so much we can learn about surviving this vast, dry, continent from the Aboriginal people, especially now that the climate has taken a turn for the worse.

For example, I understand that in the north they have two seasons, and up to seven distinct seasons as you travel south. Makes sense if you have experienced both locales for at least a year or so, and it brings home the awkwardness of imposing our four-seasons template we imported from Europe - that it is not really appropriate. To Aboriginal tribes in the Sydney region, for instance, September and October are known as Murrai'yunggoray, the time when the red waratah flower blooms.

It is followed by Goraymurrai, a period of warm, wet weather during which Aborigines would not camp near rivers for fear of flooding.

Strong message: In the Sydney region, Aborigines recognize the beginning of the Murrai’yunggoray season in September and October by the red blooms of the waratah flowers. Patrick Riviere/Getty Images

Anyway, the good news about the drought, according to Djabwurrung, Jeremy Clark, chief executive of the Brambuk Aboriginal Cultural Centre in the Grampian Mountains of Victoria State, who knows something about this stuff, is that it will soon be broken. Something to do with when cockatoos were flocking and the wattle bushes were flowering. A few good months of rain are predicted. The BoM, with their satellites and synoptic charts, can only give us a fifty-fifty chance, and John Howard, well he can only give us a prayer.

clipped from www.csmonitor.com For a warmer future, Australia employs Aboriginal wisdom Faced with its worst drought in history, meteorologists are plumbing the Aborigines' 40,000 years of lore. Australia faces climate change's worst drought. These days, Australians need all the help they can get. Last month, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the country faced an "unprecedentedly dangerous" drought. But Australia isn't the only nation to recognize indigenous meteorological knowledge. Experts studying the effects of global warming in the Arctic are looking to Inuit expertise, and South American Indians' knowledge of weather patterns, such as El Niño, has long been recognized. "The Indians knew that when the ocean was warm they'd get rain from El Niño, so they'd plant potatoes," says Dr. Stern. "When it was cold, there'd be no rain, but the anchovies would be plentiful, so they'd feed on fish." In the years to come, the Bureau of Meteorology hopes to recruit more Aboriginal communities to the project.

Aboriginal wea ther forecasting is claimed to be 90% accurate by adherents. They take note of subtle changes to plants and animals get clues about the weather. "It's about reading the landscape and the environment through the activities of plants and animals," says Mr. Clark.

For example, in the Simpson Desert of central Australia, the appearance of wading birds called plovers is associated with the onset of seasonal rains.

In the humid north of the Northern Territory, the arrival of the brolga crane was traditionally seen as heralding the beginning of the monsoon season. The flowering of rough-barked gum trees indicates that winds will blow from the southeast, bringing in the dry season.

I googled up an Sydney based Aboriginal calendar: :::[Weather cycles around Sydney from the Bodkin/Andrews clan of the D'harawal People]

It's way cool.

Today, it's the 11th May, or the third last week of Bana'Murray'Yung when Lillipilli (Syzygium spp) fruit ripens. A time when it's wet, and getting colder; traditionally the time to make cloaks and journey to the coast.

More specifically, it's Marrai'gang, when the tiger quoll seeks her mate.

During the breeding season, the male Tiger Quolls emit a slow, deep growl and a loud, explosive spitting sound (like that of a cat, but enormously magnified). The female's call is not quite as loud. These nocturnal calls may have given quolls their fearsome 'tiger' reputation. They don't look so fearsome all curled up during the day. Sadly, they are a threatened species having to survive habitat fragmentation, predation on the young by introduced foxes and feral (and domestic) cats, fire, and accidental poisoning by 1080 baiting programs to control fox and wild dog populations. When 1080 baits are used, best practice management guidelines are encouraged in order to keep impacts to native species to a minimum.

Googling more information on the Sydney Aboriginal calendar reveals that in addition to the six annual seasons is an 11-year cycle which determines what the seasons will be like... all this in an eight phase cycle! I came across this report from February 15th, 2003. :::[Now for the 4000-year forecast]

To Frances Bodkin, a traditional D'harawal Aboriginal descendant, the massive flowering of the Sydney green wattle 18 months ago was a terrible meteorological warning.

According to the calendar of her ancestors, it signalled a meeting between the climate cycle Gadalung marool and the season Gadalung burara, bringing the harsh weather we are now experiencing.

Ms Bodkin, a botanical author, teacher and traditional storyteller at Mount Annan Botanic Gardens, is one of the last people in the Sydney region who inherited tens of thousands of years of weather wisdom.

[...]

In Sydney, says Ms Bodkin, there are eight phases to the 11-year cycle. They do not last for set periods but are based on subtle changes in the environment, invisible to all but the most observant.

Gadalung burara is the hottest and driest part of the cycle and is indicated by a massive blooming of Acacia decurrens. Also, gums begin to lose their leaves.

When Gadalung burara coincides with January and February - traditionally known as Gadalung marool - there will be "real trouble", Ms Bodkin says.

Unless her ancestors began burning as soon as the wattles flowered they risked fires getting into the tree crowns.

I live in Sydney; this is an awakening for me. Imagine how many us in NSW, from politicians to fire-fighters to property owners, would have liked to have known to look out for Gadalung burara coinciding with Gadalung marool?

More googling confirms that January 2003 was when Canberra had it's terrible bushfires causing insurance losses of $250 million with 2,500 individual claims. :::[Canberra burns]




How lucky are we to now have people like Frances Bodkin share their knowledge, and that of their ancestors? Here is more information. And if you have got this far, you are as hooked as me, so you can't go past the Bureau of Meteorology Indigenous Weather website.

PM voices dustbowl fears for Australia's breadbasket

To my mind it is the biggest news in Australia this century, if fair dinkum. Maybe even since Federation in 1901.

Prime Minister John Howard appeared on television today and threatened to cut off water supplies to the farmers of the Murray-Darling basin, if there are isn't heavy rainfall in the coming months. :::[Video: SMH]

If you are not familiar with the geography - the Murray Darling Basin is the food basket of Australia, and many other parts of the world that we export to. The immediate upshot of denying these farmers their water allocations is that this would radically increase prices for many food products. The longer term effect is that the many types of crops, citrus, stone fruit and the like, that take up to five years to become established, will die. So will a lot of farming enterprises.

I am completely taken by surprise. Gob-smacked. Yes I know there is a tough drought happening, and that it had been exacerbated up until last month by the El Niño Southern Oscillation. Yes I know global warming is very gradually taking its toll, slowly changing the climate in southern Australia to a drier one.

But this announcement has me disturbed.

It still seems so out of the blue. It's also not one that you would imagine a Prime Minister would be happy to make in an election year - why wouldn't a canny man like Howard leave it to his Minister for Environment and Water Resources, Malcolm Turnbull, to take to the podium alone? As I write I am almost starting to hope that this just might be typical Howardian politics, rather than drastic reality. Howard is desperately trying to get the Victorian Premier, Steve Bracks to be part of his $10 billion water initiative; Could he be trying to scare Bracks into signing over his state's water powers to the Federal Government?

Interestingly, the biggest farmers are not panicking. They say they need Mr Howard to clarify what he means before they worry. :::[SMH: Water ban threat questioned]

The owner of one of Australia's 10 largest stone fruit farms is nonplussed by Prime Minister John Howard's declaration that no water will be allocated to irrigators in the Murray-Darling Basin for the coming year unless there is substantial rain in the next six weeks.

John Corboy, of Corboy Fresh Fruits, which operates 400 hectares near Shepparton in Victoria, said he would need more information on what Mr Howard means by "very substantial" inflows into the Murray-Darling Basin before he paid attention to it.

Mr Howard did not specify how much rain would be needed by the end of May to make irrigation allocations a possibility.

Here is what Howard said:

"Unless there are very substantial inflows - and for that read heavy rain leading to run-off into the catchment areas - prior to mid-May 2007, there will be insufficient water available to allow any allocation at the commencement of the 2007-08 water year for irrigation, the environment or for any purposes other than critical urban supplies."

And what Corboy said in response when asked:

"It's not enough to really comment on, other than, 'Hang on mate, you're flying off the handle here and you're being fairly emphatic when there's so many unknowns.' "

"Realistically we're out of the el nino effect and the indicators are showing us that clearly, the oceans temperatures have come back to normal. The pundits are telling us within our area that we have 50 per cent chance of having higher than average rainfall [this season]."

"People tend to be getting into the view that it's just never going to rain again, well that's not the case, it will, we just don't when. And there's only one bloke who knows when it will, and he's not giving interviews."

I think I'll go with the man on the land this time. The manner in which the announcement was made seemed a touch incongruent for the gravitas of the situation - if it was for real. In addition, when one journalist queried whether the drought was linked to climate change, Howard was completely emphatic in saying that it was not.

How can anyone be so sure?

Global Warning Climate Change Drought Australia

Wealthy swordfish do Norway & Greenland for school holidays

It's all too easy to blame fossil fuels for global warming, but they have brought prosperity unknown in previous generations of tropical swordfish. So much so, in fact, that there have been frequent sighting of holidaying swordfish recorded off the coast of Norway and Greenland. :::[SMH]

Parts of the North Atlantic are setting winter heat records, allowing species ranging from swordfish to jellyfish to thrive beyond their normal ranges in a shift linked by many scientists to global warming.

Temperatures in Arctic waters off northern Europe at the tail end of the Gulf Stream, for example, are about 6.7 Celsius, the highest for early January since records began in the 1930s, according to Norway's Institute of Marine Research.

[...]

In Lista by the North Sea, for example, water temperatures were a record 8.5C, 2-3 degrees above normal for January.

In recent years, salmon have been seen swimming north of the Bering Straits between Russia and Alaska, and jellyfish plagued Mediterranean beaches in 2006. Over-fishing and destruction of habitats is also disrupting marine life.

Many scientists link high global air and water temperatures in recent months to an El Nino weather event warming the eastern Pacific, and to global warming stoked by burning fossil fuels.

The longer-term warming trend is affecting all oceans.

"The Indian Ocean has had an overall warming trend attributed to the overall warming of the oceans," said Nerilie Abram of the Australian National University.

Abram said droughts in Indonesia and perhaps Australia might become more frequent as a result of changing ocean and monsoon conditions.

Global warming alarmists would deny swordfish their new found mobility. They would turn back progress and condem these magnificant creatures back to their humble beginnings in Australia, back to being hunted by wealthy tourists from Norway.

Global Warning Climate Change Environment

Global warming? Bring it on if you breed quickly.

The meek on global warming shall not inherit the earth.

If God's creatures, small, are anything to go by it looks like that honour may go to the lustful and libidinous, the lubricious and licentious. Or rather the reproductively rapid.

The recent discovery that some species of animals are evolving to adapt to rapid climate change within just a few generations gives us an idea of who or what may be left on board when our 21st century Noah's ark, what I call the planet, comes to metaphorical rest once our carbon dioxide levels stabilise and/or subside: :::[The Independent]

Smaller animals in particular that can breed quickly, such as squirrels, some birds and insects, are showing signs of evolving new patterns of behaviour to increase their chances of survival. Scientists say that many of the genetic adaptations are to cope with changes in the length of the seasons rather than the absolute increases in summer temperatures.

Larger animals and species that are slow to reproduce may on the other hand find it difficult to cope with climate change because they cannot adapt genetically as quickly as smaller, more fertile creatures that have rapid life cycles.

Christina Holzapfel, from the University of Oregon in Eugene says that, "Studies show that over the past several decades, rapid climate change has led to heritable, genetic changes in animal populations.". The Canadian red squirrel is reproducing earlier in the year, German blackcap birds migrate and arrive earlier at their nesting grounds and even northern American mosquitoes are adjusting their lifecycles to shorter days.

In the past it has been noted that animal species are extending their ranges by migrating north (and presumably south) to higher latitudes where global warming is causing longer growing seasons at a faster rate than towards the equator. This has been called 'phenotypic plasticity', or the ability of individuals to modify their behaviour, morphology or physiology in response to altered environmental conditions, but what we are also witnessing is heritable genetic adaptations to changing seasons.

So where does that leave us humans? Mice can outbreed us by a factor of 10,000 to 1. If we don't want the squeak to inherit the earth, if we don't want to say hello to the unicorn, we need to act now to change climate change.

Other posts of global warming animal adaption and non-adaption:

• Frisky lizards in climate change warning.
  The blue-tongue lizards of my home state are now mating early as mother nature sings out that the climes they are a-changing.
• Natures climate change canary cooking.
The only way is up for the American Pika as it seeks to adjust to global warming. Very sensitive to hot temperatures, their 1200 years migration from the great American plains has found them in alpine terrain

global warming climate change environment science CO2 evolution earth