No mays, coulds, or mights here in this press release headline from UEA. They say “will“. As usual, they assume nature so poorly equipped her creations that they can’t adapt. That’s some ballsy certainty.
Climate change will cause widespread global-scale loss of common plants and animals
More than half of common plants and one third of the animals could see a dramatic decline this century due to climate change – according to research from the University of East Anglia.
Research published today in the journal Nature Climate Change looked at 50,000 globally widespread and common species and found that more than one half of the plants and one third of the animals will lose more than half of their climatic range by 2080 if nothing is done to reduce the amount of global warming and slow it down.
This means that geographic ranges of common plants and animals will shrink globally and biodiversity will decline almost everywhere.
Plants, reptiles and particularly amphibians are expected to be at highest risk. Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, Amazonia and Australia would lose the most species of plants and animals. And a major loss of plant species is projected for North Africa, Central Asia and South-eastern Europe.
But acting quickly to mitigate climate change could reduce losses by 60 per cent and buy an additional 40 years for species to adapt. This is because this mitigation would slow and then stop global temperatures from rising by more than two degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial times (1765). Without this mitigation, global temperatures could rise by 4 degrees Celsius by 2100.
The study was led by Dr Rachel Warren from theTyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UEA. Collaborators include Dr Jeremy VanDerWal at James Cook University in Australia and Dr Jeff Price, from UEA’s school of Environmental Sciences and the Tyndall Centre. The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
Dr Warren said: “While there has been much research on the effect of climate change on rare and endangered species, little has been known about how an increase in global temperature will affect more common species.
“This broader issue of potential range loss in widespread species is a serious concern as even small declines in these species can significantly disrupt ecosystems.
“Our research predicts that climate change will greatly reduce the diversity of even very common species found in most parts of the world. This loss of global-scale biodiversity would significantly impoverish the biosphere and the ecosystem services it provides.
“We looked at the effect of rising global temperatures, but other symptoms of climate change such as extreme weather events, pests, and diseases mean that our estimates are probably conservative. Animals in particular may decline more as our predictions will be compounded by a loss of food from plants.
“There will also be a knock-on effect for humans because these species are important for things like water and air purification, flood control, nutrient cycling, and eco-tourism.
“The good news is that our research provides crucial new evidence of how swift action to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gases can prevent the biodiversity loss by reducing the amount of global warming to 2 degrees Celsius rather than 4 degrees. This would also buy time – up to four decades – for plants and animals to adapt to the remaining 2 degrees of climate change.”
The research team quantified the benefits of acting now to mitigate climate change and found that up to 60 per cent of the projected climatic range loss for biodiversity can be avoided.
Dr Warren said: “Prompt and stringent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally would reduce these biodiversity losses by 60 per cent if global emissions peak in 2016, or by 40 per cent if emissions peak in 2030, showing that early action is very beneficial. This will both reduce the amount of climate change and also slow climate change down, making it easier for species and humans to adapt.”
Information on the current distributions of the species used in this research came from the datasets shared online by hundreds of volunteers, scientists and natural history collections through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).
Co-author Dr Jeff Price, also from UEA’s school of Environmental Studies, said: “Without free and open access to massive amounts of data such as those made available online through GBIF, no individual researcher is able to contact every country, every museum, every scientist holding the data and pull it all together. So this research would not be possible without GBIF and its global community of researchers and volunteers who make their data freely available.”
‘Quantifying the benefit of early climate change mitigation in avoiding biodiversity loss’ is published by the journal Nature Climate Change on Sunday May 12, 2013.
Getting a lot of traction in today’s Independent, where the comments display complete ignorance of the issues and esp of the problems with this paper. It’s a sad fact that this ‘newspaper’ is read by so many opinion-formers, inc teachers and lecturers.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/life-on-earth-under-threat-from-co2-levels-say-scientists-8612900.html
It.
Stopped.
Warming.
We are very happy to use everyone’s freely donated data. Thank you.
You cannot have our data because you just want to find fault with it. Bugger off.
“… 50,000 globally widespread and common species…”
If they are widespread they already cope with the ‘projected’ 2C to 6C catastrophe.
Name the reviewers. I will bring the tar and the feathers.
That statement is true. The Climate will (and does) change. That change will (and does, and always has) cause plants and animals to die. We learned at least that much in high school.
The causes are not yet known, however. Next.
Unbelievable. I mean, really, unbelievable, as in “not to be believed.”
How many plants and animal species would be lost in the absence of “climate change,” a dubious term if there ever was one? How much species range would be lost regardless of “climate change” due mostly to loss of habitat through changes in land use? McIntyre would have a field day with this study.
They really are revving up for AR5, aren’t they?
CO2 helps plants grow, therefore possibility more diversity not less?
They are right, of course, but because the sign on the change is towards the minus: A coming ice age could indeed cause that effect. Heating Earth will not.
IF the change is unprecedented, then the rate of adaptation is also unknown.
After all, Polar Bears, Artic Foxes, Emperor Penguins, and Seals aren’t that fragile, I’ve seen them at the Denver Zoo frolic in the sun at 95 F.
If any creatures were too fragile to endure a temperature at nearly 60 degrees (F) than what is normally encountered in their normal habit, these would be the first ones I’d expect to be hunkering down or not active.
It is the Tynfoil Centre…
Nature Climate Change – This new journal does seem to have spectacular papers published quite regularly. Spectacular but implausible papers. As though the year on year variations in the timoings of the seasons is of less impact than a gradual change (for whatever cause) over a century.
OK, some turtles have a long period generations but “More than half of common plants and one third of the animals”?
Would this pass peer review in a respectable journal?
But Nature Climate Change is a new journal. Perhaps, there needs to be a formal rating system for the quality of such journals. Maybe, the percentage of published papers that are overturned per year since publication could gve a simple, two-parameter metric. Too few overturned quicky and the journal haslittle new to say. Too many overturned quickly and the editorial standrds are clearly rubbish.
Oh, and a third metric especially for Nature Climate Change – % of papers that can never be falsiifed.
Like every pro-AGW organization, they are doubling down on their claims while “fixing” global temperature numbers as data mocks computer model “projections.”
The 13th word in paragraph #1 is “could”.
Technically, I “could” be president. Or an astronaut…
Pure Climate Bollocks.
The complete Greenland ice core shows the Eemian temperature was ~8 C warmer than today about 130,000 years ago.
Nature is robust:
– both in constraining total changes between ~ 10C and 25C,
and in adapting to such changes!
Focus on adapting as 50x cheaper than “mitigating”.
It’s the CO2, you see. Plants don’t like it.
Oh look, another squadron of flying pigs………..
A great business opportunity! A zoo & botanical garden should be set aside to study un-extinct
animals and plants which became un-extinct at least twice before.
“We looked at the effect of rising global temperatures”
========
apparently they didn’t get the memo that there has been no significant increase this century.
Maybe if we give them another $100K they might be able to learn that plants grow better in higher CO2 environments.
Reality Check needed!
See:
Study: Climate 460 MYA was like today, but thought to have CO2 levels 5-20 times as high
Vandenbroucke, T.R.A., Armstrong, H.A., Williams, M., Paris, F., Zalasiewicz, J.A., Sabbe, K., Nolvak, J., Challands, T.J., Verniers, J. & Servais, T. 2010. Polar front shift and atmospheric CO2 during the glacial maximum of the Early Paleozoic Icehouse. PNAS doi/10.1073/pnas.1003220107.
The paper is correct!
Bird choppers (Wind turbines) will kill more endangered species because “environmentalist” believe in CAGW. Beliefs do kill.
No surprise that the BBC (Biased Broadcasting Corpration) picked up on this and is featuring it on their website. What a wonderful illustration of how scientifically illiterate a society we’ve become.
“… reduce the amount of global warming and slow it down.”
Rejoice, then, ye worriers, for global warming has slowed down to nil:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/global-land-ocean-mntp-anom/201101-201112.png
RHS says:
May 13, 2013 at 7:14 am
” I’ve seen them at the Denver Zoo frolic in the sun at 95 F.” That’s a first to me, whenever I’ve seen penguins, they’ve been frolicking in the water.
I call these people global warming rapture-ists comparing them to the religious fundamentalists from the Bible Belt. They are all seeing that the Great Apocalypse is coming, something we common sense people can’t see.
The CAGW crowds are becoming more and more desperate as nature refuses to cooperate.
The migration of Ecotones is not new. Carole Crumley, for example, did some good work on this in the 1990’s. To quote from Gill’s “The Great Maya Droughts: Water, Life and Death.”
“Over the past two millennia, in fact, the ecotone dividing the Mediterranean and continental climatic regions has migrated north and south from 36 degN along the North African Coast to 48 degN along the North Sea and Baltic coast of Northwest Europe – a distance of 8 deg of latitude, approximately 880 km (500 miles). (Crumley 1994))
……… During the first millennium BC, Celtic peoples occupied the northern half of the range of the Mediterranean-continental ecotone. South of the Celts, along the north Mediterranean littoral, lived the sea traders, among them Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans. Around the fifth century BC, during a period when the ecotone when the ecotone was located far to the south, the Celts advanced on settlements in Italy and Geece. By the end of the second century BC, as the ecotone moved sharply north, the tables were turned dramatically. Rome came to dominate the Greek-controlled shipping lanes and made a province of the southern fringe of Celtic polities in France. By the end of the first century BC, Rome had conquered the entire Mediterranean region and Western Europe as far as the Rhine, roughly the northern location of the ecotone.
As Crumley points out, “The extent and duration of the Pax Romana in Europe was greatly facilitated by climatic conditions that favored Roman-as opposed to Celtic-economic, social and political organization.”
I suppose, back then, us Celts were the “endangered species.”
We had frost this morning. The forecast for tomorrow is 90 degrees. If a couple degrees in 70 years is going to cause that much harm, surely >60 degrees in 24 hours is going to kill everything here, eh?
Hang on, biodiversity will decline? In a world which is greening due to the extra C02? What a pile of bollocks.
“The good news is that our research provides crucial new evidence of how swift action to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gases can prevent the biodiversity loss by reducing the amount of global warming to 2 degrees Celsius rather than 4 degrees.”
They are building on a foundation made of sand. The study wasn’t about climate sensitivity yet depends on a specific figure for it. How much additional CO2 is required for a 4C increase? I’m pretty sure I’ve read about a number of papers that disagree about this key value…
“Co-author Dr Jeff Price, also from UEA’s school of Environmental Studies, said: “Without free and open access to massive amounts of data such as those made available online through GBIF, no individual researcher is able to contact every country, every museum, every scientist holding the data and pull it all together. ”
They are lucky Phil Jones was not in charge of data.
From what I know of Sub-Saharan Africa, Amazonia, and Central America, the flora and fauna there are in danger of habitat loss more from the direct actions of man on them and their habitat than from any kind of climate change.
“Prompt and stringent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally…”
At the core of such nonsense is control. You’ll never catch the “controllers” setting example to further their proclamations in cause of their catastrophic claims.
And with the next generation moving through an “education” system aimed at brain washing to the same message of “its all your fault” thus kneel before the thrown of powers at be who will at liberties expense “control” all. As in even what you swallow as seen by the NY mayor who NY elected.
This is basically about breaking through open doors!
What has really happened all the extinct species that ever existed (~ 98% of all), unless climate change caused this?
If adaptability had been missing in evolution, ancient species like ginko, ferns, sharks and crocodiles had no longer existed. (We wouldn’t have this discussion …) If as stated, the question is if it had been any advanced life left at all?
It seems that some people in the past, have failed in biology!
An idea – the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, is due to a heavy use of weed …
The six N. American birds species to go extinct all did so around the beginning of the 20th Century. None since.
I suppose that means that Climate Change was more intense before the increase in CO2 concentration?
PS we’re still not sure about the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.
Raving Loony University, who wants to pay £9000 p/a to study there.
Soon there will be press releases blaming this century’s warming (never mind that is does not exist) on the decreasing population of bats, then eagles, then followed by a press release for every other species of bird that as fallen in mass numbers from the sky (never mind the windmills.)
The PR war will not end any time soon.
This whole idea of massive catastrophe for plants and animals from a small temperature increase just doesn’t pass the smell test. A small increase in temperature over decades or a century is going to cause catastrophic effects for plants and animals that regularly — both throughout the day and throughout the year — experience temperature swings far in excess of the alleged coming warming?
Further, a warmer climate is typically a more hospitable climate for plants and animals, particularly when much of the alleged warming is supposed to raise nighttime lows. How that can possibly be a catastrophe doesn’t make sense.
The only way you can conclude a catastrophe of this scale is by (i) assuming an unrealistically high warming number, (ii) modeling negatives and ignoring positives, (iii) including other questionable follow-on assumptions that allegedly flow from the warming, like more drought, more severe weather, etc., and (iv) ignoring organisms’ ability to adapt.
Sorry, but I can’t get too worried for the general flora and fauna of the Earth over a couple degrees of temperature increase.
I agree with these “experts” unless the spread of this most dangerous subspecies, the wild-eyed eco-loon, is checked; common plants and animals will suffer on a global basis.
These secular anti-humanists are hostile to all forms of life, worship a non-existent earth deity and destroy everything they claim to save.
They say meat is bad, so all domestic herd will suffer.
Food shall be fuel, so harvests are destroyed.
Logging(forest management) is evil,so forests will burn.
Food comes from the supermarket,water from a tap and carbon is a toxin to carbon based life.
So these “experts” are right, unless we prevent the rise of this subspecies of man, massive ecological damage will ensue , this century.
Sadly sarcasm does not apply.
All people who think the science of CO2 weather and global warming is settled should remember a Richard Feyndman quote “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” For theory read “model” and for experiment read “actual weather”.
I’m betting there’s not a single geologist amongst ’em. (Any geologist would be laughing his pants off at their absurd claims.)
UEA perfessers must believe up is down, left is right, and hot is cold: It is an Ice Age that restricts biodiversity; it is warm geologic periods in which life forms flourish. They just simply don’t get it (except when “it” refers to more funding from a corrupt government wasting taxpayer dollars they can’t afford.)
Is “LPKI JATENG says: May 13, 2013 at 7:38 am” spamming WUWT?
Seen him/her on another thread with nothing to say as well.
Soooo, how many plant and animal species have dissapeared in the last, say, 1,000 years or 1,ooo,ooo or 1,000,000,000 years? Like 75-99% or so?
Ya think?
UEA stopped doing real science years ago.
As for the Tyndall Centre, they never started.
Channel 4 in the UK have started a series about “climate change causing a wildlife crisis.
Most of it, unsurprisingly, has no basis in fact.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/climate-change-causing-wildlife-crisischannel-4-news/
“… will lose more than half of their climatic range by 2080…”
I guess my question for the authors would be “If all of the climate ranges shrink to half their current size, what sort of climate or non-climate (?) fills in the vacated areas?”
This prediction assumes all other things will be equal. Even if it were otherwise correct, that assumption invalidates everything.
I’m reminded of the story: “In 1894, the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure.”
Is the story true? Probably not or they’d cite the prognosticator and edition. But as Freakonomics author Steven D. Levitt puts it “People never imagined in the 1890s manure would be a distant memory in a decade, and yet in a decade it was solved.”
He applies that lesson to Climate Change. http://www.fortnightly.com/fortnightly/2007/12/horse-manure-crisis?page=0%2C0
Warren et al.’s forecast time is way beyond Kurzweil’s estimate for the technological singularity. Even if Kurzweil is wrong, which is not a proposition I’m prepared to bet on, it is unreasonable to anticipate that changes in computing, genetic engineering, biotechnology, novel energy sources and medical and other technology won’t change every other aspect of the Globe so immensely as to make this sad prophecy moot, ripped from the entrails of a computer though it might be.
What will become of biodiversity if there is atomic war, or a nuclear winter? What do their forecasts say about the effects on climate range of species subject to natural selection, artificial selection or genetic engineering? What about the vast impact of invasive species?
I am unconvinced of the inability of the ecosystem to adapt to the prospective change. Evolution is a slow process, but not because conditions are steady-state. Mostly they are cyclic, with drought and flood and ordinary conditions alternating regularly. Each generation is subject to natural selection according to the conditions encountered in it’s life. As Olivia Judson points out, the contents of a genome tend to ‘jitter’ in response to natural selection according to varying conditions. If changes are all in one direction for a while it does not seem to pose any insuperable problem for orthodox evolutionary theory.
To compute a future without taking these expected changes into account is to presume that although you are putting the wrong figures in, the right numbers will come out. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a forecast.
Where can I git me a job write’n lies to scare people so they’ll keep askin me for more?
What about all those “spare” genes we are endowed with, believed by some to exist precisely to enable us to cope with a changing environment? Climate scientists are such rigidly deterministic types, aren’t they? It must be in their genes, I suppose. Obviously in need of a shake-up!
Outrageous “panhandling for grant money” hyperbole.
The study was led by Dr Rachel Warren from theTyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UEA. Collaborators include Dr Jeremy VanDerWal at James Cook University in Australia and Dr Jeff Price, from UEA’s school of Environmental Sciences and the Tyndall Centre.
Policy based evidence making.
What’s wrong with all you people! Aren’t you aware that there were only 5000 polar bears in 1970 and their population has declined to about 25000 today?
Aren’t the most biodiverse ecosystems generally in the tropics? You know, the warmest areas on the planet?
Learn something new every day. Today I learned that plants only need 40 years to adapt to climate change. /sarc
“This broader issue of potential range loss in widespread species is a serious concern as even small declines in these species can significantly disrupt ecosystems”
I see. You’ve already counted these species and tabulated the ‘impact’, have you? That ‘suggests’ it has already happened, then…and that further ‘losses’ ‘could’ be disastrous?
This is a prime example of a “hypersentence”, which wraps up a broad, sweeping assertion in a tone of shrieking alarm…and nothing more (as if that weren’t enough). Meaningless blather breathlessly repeated by a captive reporter.
I thought God intervened 15 years ago to stop this Global Warming Mularkey……
I’d like to read it. I don’t think it would stand up to close scrutiny.
This thing is so laughable it’s not even funny. They want to pull the plug on the economy, and of course send a ton of money to Africa so that we can save the plants and give them another big whopping 40 years to adapt. 40 years for a species to adapt? Ha ha ha. It’s hilarious that these ‘progressives’ are so dead set against natural climate progress. They claim it’s conservatives who want to keep everything the same. It’s a fact: More CO2 equals happier plants. Happy plants, more Oxygen. More Oxygen, happy mammals. Win-win.
The hysteria is frightening. Seriously. If this was anywhere near an accurate claim… seriously. Think about it. They’re still talking near annihilation. Blah, blah, blah, weather isn’t climate, but if they can’t get one day’s worth of weather regularly and accurately forecast, how can they forecast something immensely more massive and complex? and do so with any degree of accuracy? I can do better and I ain’t no scientist:
“Starting today climate will begin to change, sometimes warming, sometimes cooling. These rolling changes in climate will continue well into the next century with temperature and weather changing towards the warm or towards the cool. Weather events will peak and drop, spike and trend, with periods of increased and decreased anomalies. Droughts and floods will continue to wreak havoc on coastal and inland areas, interspersed with extended periods of more seasonal and temperate events. The long term climate forecast is “more of the same” with patterns and trends coming and going, across the globe and across the ages, displaying the gamut of climatic phenomenon. Then, in 2212, the world will come to an end just as the new Mayan Calendar has prophecied; the sun will explode at the exact moment Planet X plows into our beloved planet. It will Man’s fault, of course.”
So how come these clowns aren’t in jail? Oh wait.They have the guberment behind them.Silly me.
“Animals in particular may decline more as our predictions will be compunded by a loss of food from plants’.
So they’re turning the science on its head now? More CO2 and more warmth (though no more than the typical diurnal range anywhere in the world) = less plant food? Who’d av thunk!!
This is another fictional extreme scenario. Let’s imagine the planet warms 3C to 6C, ignoring analysis and observations that indicate that the planet will warm less than 1C. Lindzen and Choi’s analysis (two separate papers) that cloud cover in the tropics increases and decreases to resist forcing changes, negative feedback, as opposed to the IPCC model assumption of amplification. No amplification, temperature rise is 1.2C. Negative feedback, temperature rise is less than 1.2C. Idso analysis – based on the analysis of the planet’s response to eight different natural step changes in forcing to determine the planet’s response to a step change in forcing – supports Lindzen and Choi’s result.
Even if the planet did warm 3C, the biosphere will expand not shrink based on the paleo record.
The warmists are trying to distract the discussion away from the fact that observations and analysis that indicates a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in less than 1C warming. An obvious observation to support the assertion that there will be less than 1Cwarming is there was been no warming for the last 16 years. The observations indicate something is fundamentally incorrect with the general circulation models that ‘project’ a warming of 3C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from 0.028% to 0.056% is absurdly high.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/global-warming-slowdown-the-view-from-space/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-global-LT-vs-UAH-and-RSS.png
The 20th century warming is not unusual. There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleoclimatic record. The majority of the Holocene interglacial has been warmer than the current warmer period.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_hi-def3.gif
Scientific analysis does not support the IPCC general circulation models. The IPCC GCM are not correct.
The IPCC general circulation models require water vapor in the atmosphere to amplify (positive feedback) the CO2 forcing to arrive at 3C warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2. Lindzen and Choi’s analysis of top of the atmosphere radiation emissions Vs changes in the ocean surface temperatures showed that the planet resists rather than amplifies forcing changes. Based on Lindzen and Choi’s satellite analysis a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in less than 1C warming.
Lindzen and Choi’s analysis’ result (the earth resists forcing change, negative feedback rather than positive feedback) is supported by Idso’s analysis of 8 actual step type temperature changes that occur on the earth to determine the earth’s sensitivity to a change in forcing. The 8 independent step change analysis cases each gave a negative sensitivity for a forcing change (the earth resists the forcing change rather than amplifies the forcing change).
Using the paper’s calculated sensitivity of 0.1C/(watt/m^2) and the IPCC’s assumed forcing change for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 of 4.5 watts/m^2, the calculate warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is 0.45C.
http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr/10//c010p069.pdf
CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic’s view of potential climate change
Over the course of the past 2 decades, I have analyzed a number of natural phenomena that reveal how Earth’s near-surface air temperature responds to surface radiative perturbations. These studies all suggest that a 300 to 600 ppm doubling of the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration could raise the planet’s mean surface air temperature by only about 0.4°C. Even this modicum of warming may never be realized, however, for it could be negated by a number of planetary cooling forces that are intensified by warmer temperatures and by the strengthening of biological processes that are enhanced by the same rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration that drives the warming. Several of these cooling forces have individually been estimated to be of equivalent magnitude, but of opposite sign, to the typically predicted greenhouse effect of a doubling of the air’s CO2 content, which suggests to me that little net temperature change will ultimately result from the ongoing buildup of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere. Consequently, I am skeptical of the predictions of significant CO2-induced global warming that are being made by state-of-the-art climate models and believe that much more work on a wide variety of research fronts will be required to properly resolve the issue.
A final set of empirical evidence that may be brought to bear upon the issue of CO2-induced climate change pertains to the greenhouse effect of water vapor over the tropical oceans (Raval & Ramanathan 1989, Ramanathan & Collins 1991, Lubin 1994). This phenomenon has recently been quantified by Valero et al. (1997), who used airborne radiometric measurements
and sea surface temperature data to evaluate its magnitude over the equatorial Pacific. Their direct measurements reveal that a 14.0 W m–2 increase in downward-directed thermal radiation at the surface of the sea increases surface water temperatures by 1.0°C; and dividing the latter of these 2 numbers by the former yields a surface water temperature sensitivity factor of 0.071°C/(W m–2), which would imply a similar surface air temperature sensitivity factor at equilibrium. By comparison, if I equate my best estimate of the surface air temperature sensitivity factor of the world as a whole [0.100°C/(W m–2)] with the sum of the appropriately-weighted land and water surface factors [0.3 0.172°C/(W m–2) + 0.7 W, where W is the surface air temperature sensitivity factor over the open ocean], I obtain a value of 0.069°C/(W m–2) for the ocean-based component of the whole-Earth surface air temperature sensitivity factor in close agreement with the results of Valero et al.
http://www.johnstonanalytics.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/LindzenChoi2011.235213033.pdf
“On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications by Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi
We estimate climate sensitivity from observations, using the deseasonalized fluctuations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the concurrent fluctuations in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) outgoing radiation from the ERBE (1985-1999) and CERES (2000- 2008) satellite instruments. Distinct periods of warming and cooling in the SSTs were used to evaluate feedbacks. An earlier study (Lindzen and Choi, 2009) was subject to significant criticisms. The present paper is an expansion of the earlier paper where the various criticisms are taken into account. … … We argue that feedbacks are largely concentrated in the tropics, and the tropical feedbacks can be adjusted to account for their impact on the globe as a whole. Indeed, we show that including all CERES data (not just from the tropics) leads to results similar to what are obtained for the tropics alone – though with more noise. We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. …. … CO2, a relatively minor greenhouse gas, has increased significantly since the beginning of the industrial age from about 280 ppmv to about 390 ppmv, presumably due mostly to man’s emissions. This is the focus of current concerns. However, warming from a doubling of CO2 would only be about 1C (based on simple calculations where the radiation altitude and the Planck temperature depend on wavelength in accordance with the attenuation coefficients of well mixed CO2 molecules; a doubling of any concentration in ppmv produces the same warming because of the logarithmic dependence of CO2’s absorption on the amount of CO2) (IPCC, 2007). This modest warming is much less than current climate models suggest for a doubling of CO2. Models predict warming of from 1.5C to 5C and even more for a doubling of CO2. Model predictions depend on the ‘feedback’ within models from the more important greenhouse substances, water vapor and clouds. Within all current climate models, water vapor increases with increasing temperature so as to further inhibit infrared cooling. Clouds also change so that their visible reflectivity decreases, causing increased solar absorption and warming of the earth. …”
This is a cue for George Carlin.
“Over 90% of species that have ever existed on this planet are dead….gone…we didn’t kill them all”
An article on this appeared in the local East Anglian Daily Times, quoting its figures and views verbatim, with no attempt at analysis. I emailed a response.
“The article does not make clear that its slew of figures supposedly showing alarming effects on the ecosystem are not based on any proven likeliehood, but are the more extreme results of computer based hypothetical models of a limited set of atmospheric effects. The results are worthy of discussion as a learning piece on climate effects, but to imply that they convey any authority is simply misleading. The same computer modelists were confidently telling us a decade and a half ago that the global temperature would rise, but it hasn’t, and from actual measurements it has stayed flat.
In this way, hard reality should already have cautioned against further use of the spurious output from incomplete model systems. Yet still we see the same selective interpretations, the same assumptions that no one has noticed their past damning failures, and the downright wishfulness that we should still automatically hang onto their every word. The public deserve better.”
I hope this works.
Given the desperation of the CAGW groups, it would only be proper christian charity, to throw them a lifesaver.
My (entirely non-existent) research, has shown that at an atmospheric concentration of just 700PPM,( or any other unreachable number) the plants will awaken from their suffocation induced slumber and once again roam freely across the surface of this planet.
My greenhouse experiments have proven this, honest, but the data is proprietary.
Doom from the ancient memory of man will once again arise.
This upcoming plant rampage will destroy the works of man, we are all doomed, unless we stop the deadly carbon dioxide emissions.
Sarcasm aside, there is the foundation of a fine doomsday cult here, some fine work al la L. Ron Hubbard and we could be set up for life.
So how many protesting letters will appear in the UK Daily Telegraph, Independent etc? I’ll wager none. So many anti-AGW scientists sceptics and bloggers but none of them will stand up and refute this rubbish. Why is that? Such missed opportunities,
Did anyone notice the DTel Nature Notes on the back page saying “Global temperatures are predicted to rise 39F above pre-industrial levels by 2100 if nothing is done to stem greenhouse gas emissions”?
“biodiversity will decline almost everywhere”
—
So they don’t believe species can adapt or evolve to fill the vacuum like they always have in the past? But before biodiversity can “decline”, it would have to start warming again. If they know enough to predict a specific 60/40 percent loss in biodiversity, why can’t they predict how soon the planet will start warming again? If they can’t do that, it’s all speculation.
Incredible? Fascinating? In the ancient city of Norwich, East Anglia, England, a team of researchers were paid a handsome six-figure sum to live in a locked ‘laboratory’ on the top floor of the EUA’s mysterious west citadel tower. Their task was to prove that CAGW threatens the very extinction of some ‘things’. Their laboratory was dark and circular with thick padded walls and no natural light – just in case they might see what is really happening outside. Any communication with the outside world was restricted to a telephone link directly to the BBC and The Guardian – and each researcher chose to wear their obligatory special white ‘lab’ coat with long sleeves that reach all the way round to their backs. The report would have normally taken them nine months to complete – but this was reduced to six when they discovered that their flow of concentration (and other bodily fluids) was enhanced if they chained themselves upside-down permanantly to the laboratory wall. They survived their ordeal purely on a daily diet of overly-yeasted raw bread dough and fizzy lemonade. This was a major obstacle as each disliked CO2 with a vengeance. In fact, they hated CO2 so much that they planned to rid the world of the evil gas once and for all – just as soon as they had secured victory over the renegade enemy gang of climate change contrarian truthsayers. Well if they can make it up, so can we.
“will lose more than half of their climatic range by 2080 if nothing is done to reduce the amount of global warming and slow it down.”
This after a heading about climate change – it’s still about global warming! Anthony I think we have to relentlessly hammer this factor. In the headlines you should insert in parentheses – global warming – see below. All queries concerning the horrors of climate change should specifically ask: “Is this about rising temperatures, global warming? Then why don’t you say so up front?” If they say its about weird weather or whatever else, ask if they mean “caused by global warming”.Surely it can’t be about global cooling because they are saying reducing temp by 2 degrees below the expected 4 degrees will give the plants a chance to adapt.We have to keep these guys on message – they don’t like being on message.
As Henry Galt susinctly stated:
It. Stopped. Warming.
Arrogance: Man causes global warming. Man can stop global warming
UEA Says -WILL- Well it may, It could, It might, it’s certainly a possibility, that’s a for sure!
Hold your breath – more study and money will be required to come up with concrete solutions to the non-existent distant crisis! Lol.
Some stop gap measures = Complete industrialization of the worlds economy’s, yep that will do it nicely!
Now what I understand is that during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum which lasted about 20,000 years “Global temperatures rose at least 5°C”.
[my bolding]
“But acting quickly to mitigate climate change could reduce losses by 60 per cent and buy an additional 40 years for species to adapt.”
And if we “act quickly”, there will be extinctions of whooping cranes (see earlier thread), raptors and bats.
Funny that we don’t hear much about that. Actually, it’s not funny, its sickening.
Even if the most outlandish claims were true, they are ignoring that fact that even as ranges shrink because the southern extent is moving northward, they are also exanping as the north extent also moves northward. (Apologies for the northern hemisphere bias in the comment.)
Regardless, more CO2 in the atmoshpere enables plants to handle more extremes in the environment. And if their food survives, so will the fauna.
Is it because the Sahara is projected to get wetter and greener? The damaging effects are already here! Oh noes head for them there hills!
I often read about how birds and animal ranges are moving north due to the heat. Now get ready to have a laugh. Earlier this year the weather, not the climate, kicked in with signs of early spring.
First they tell us that plants and animals are moving range due to global warming now they tell us that they can’t. Are plants moving uphill or not? Sheesh.
This explains it all. It’s based on a model. Nuff said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22500673
Overpopulation with humans and their destruction of the environment is the principal and very obvious cause of changes to the British fauna and flora. That is the elephant in the room that these bozos will not recognise.
This might be of interest – it’s in the Norwich local paper:
Climate change expert steps in at the last minute to help give talk.
A climate change expert has stepped in at short notice to give a special talk for the United Nations Association (UNA) in Norwich after the original speaker pulled out.The Norwich and District branch of the UNA is hosting a special talk on Saturday, May 18 at 11am in the Curve at the Forum in the city centre. The talk, entitled “Patterns for a Sustainable Planet” will be given by Professor Le Quéré, who is professor of Climate Change Science and Policy at the UEA and director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Marguerite Finn, UNA vice-chairman, said: “We are exceptionally lucky and privileged to have Professor Corinne Le Quéré come and talk to us. “She has stepped in at the last minute when our original speaker could not make it, and I hope we can get a good audience for her.” Professor Le Quéré co-chairs the Global Carbon Project, a non‑governmental organisation that fosters international research on the carbon cycle and publishes annual updates on global emissions and sinks of carbon dioxide. This new international research programme, Future Earth, will coordinate international research on sustainability for the next 10 years.
“…if nothing is done to reduce the amount of global warming and slow it down…”.
Um. What warming would that be? Is that the adjusted/malleable/fixed/fiddled/altered/amended/made-up HADCRUT 4.whatever.0?
stop global temperatures from rising by more than two degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial times (1765)
How can anyone suppose that our Earth had a constant surface temperature before the beginning of the industrial revolution? Outright nonsense.
Climate change will cause widespread global-scale loss of common plants and animals?
Maybe the green cult should worry about a real environmental threat to plant life: the loss of bees caused by neonicotinoid pesticide pollution. Maybe we should be engineering more GMO crops that are resistant to pests and have no need for pesticides. But real environmental pollution is not a concern for the enviro-marxists.
You have to ask what business UEA or any other institution of (higher? seems more like lower to me) learning has employing people as ignorant, delusional and mean-spirited as the authors of thies so-called “research.”
How this bunch of feces can be called “research” blows the mind of any rational person.
Sooner or later, the schools and universities are going to have to purge themselves of these mollusks, and make them go do some honest work such as cleaning bus station toilets – that is, if they’re not put on the prison rockpile making little ones out of big ones 12 hours/day 7 days/week.
Cruel? Any more so than what they’re doing to old people who can’t afford to heat their homes because of carbon taxes and other alarmist crimes?
RockyRoad: I know a Geology perfesser who believes & promotes this warmist nonsense. Geologists are not immune, just look at the amount of proAGW material at the recent AGU conference in the US!
The only species being affected by global warming alarmism is the human race?
The Tyndall centre and UEA are experts in uneducated guesses.
Bob Carter gave emtertaining lectures – probably still does – in which he put up graphs of temperature and pointed out all the hot times when Earth’s present species went extinct. If I remember it correctly, the poor wretched polar bears went extinct at least 5 times.
Seriously, though, it’s worth reflecting on how evolution operates. As I understand it, it goes like this : As climate changes, species adapt or perish. In a stable climate period, successful species proliferate and dominate and biodiversity in all probability decreases. In periods of rapidly changing climate (especially cooling), as existing species retreat, new species emerge. ie, even though numbers may decline, biodiversity increases.
I like to get a look at the face of the researcher. It seems to make their data more substantial somehow.
So which of these do you think is the scientist?
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/files/ole/ole_images/people/named%20individuals/profiles/other%20contributors/rachel-warren/rachel%20warren_1_0.jpg
http://pinterest.com/rvictoria/activity/
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Yet more predictions of doom, Doom, DOOM!! from the climate alarmist crowd. I’m willing to bet these will be as accurate as all the prior “Climate Astrology” predictions — not at all.
God knows how a plant survives winter and summer temperature changes.
Obviously they never raised tomatoes or kittens.
Oh, I get so disinterested in their latest “scientific results”. Why don’t they say the earth will stop spinning, or the Sun will go dark or the universe end, if they don’t get more funding?
Oh, wait, the Earth IS spinning out of control, so I guess it COULD stop spinning, with no-one controlling it.
Adam Soereg says May 13, 2013 at 1:20 pm
How can anyone suppose that our Earth had a constant surface temperature before the beginning of the industrial revolution?
Precisely! The people who label us climate change deniers are actually deniers of natural climate change. They persistently refuse to state their reasons and evidence as to how the current climate is unatural.
So many lulz. The good part is these (presumably) very very young activist types will live long enough to see their paper a laughing stock for the world.
They start with a chart that shows warmenation from 2000. Hello??? Surely that itself would have been enough for peer reviewers to throw it out?
Reptiles?? F***ing REPTILES can’t handle the heat now???
Quote from Prof Lord Winston (Fertility expert and famous for various TV series and, I think, a warmist)
“I know scientists who are amazingly stupid”
Couldn’t have put it better!
Plants are adapted to a wide range of temperatures, every day. It’s the introduction of pests and diseases that is the biggest threat to their survival, and humans are often the cause of that in this age of travel: http://pindanpost.com/2013/05/13/damaging-plant-fungi-alert/
I heard these comments on the BBC Radio 2 News at 16:00 as I was driving back to work in the North East of England; the temperature on the outside of the car was, wait for it! 6.0 Celsius! In the middle of May?
Are these cretins for real??
This apparently happens during EVERY interglacial, and particularly right at their ends!
Honestly, after Climategate, and especially after the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file, ANYTHING, ANYTHING AT ALL that has Hadley, CRU or UEA associated with it I simply cannot be bothered to even read. Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice? Somewhat unlikely. The Title was all I needed to see.
Go do some reading on the high resolution studies that have in just the past 5 years been published on the Eemian and Holsteinian interglacials. Sweeps of vegetation responding to to climate change, dramatic climate changes, WITHIN these interglacials:
http://www.clim-past.net/9/679/2013/cp-9-679-2013.pdf
http://www.clim-past.net/9/567/2013/cp-9-567-2013.pdf
http://www.clim-past.net/6/131/2010/cp-6-131-2010.pdf
just for a taste.
” Tom Harley says: It’s the introduction of pests and diseases …”
Birds have been doing that a lot longer than we have.
Hasn’t Mother Gaia stopped her own global warming all by herself?
The Three Climateers.
Dr Warren’s paper was reported in the DT and her temperature rise for 2100 was 39F. A somewhat impossible rise given that it is a rise 21.67C. I have asked her if this is a mosplaced decimal point which would give 2.1C rise and within the IPCC claim. So no real scare then.
Typical scaremongering reports on the very real decline in Hedgehogs and UEA at it again. You guys don’t have them in the USA but they hold a very special place in the British psyche.
As you can see climate change is associated in this first report from the BBC but look at the later reports that show the more likely reasons, particularly habitat.
SCARE
“The UK’s landscape and wildlife are under threat like never before, a new report into climate change has revealed.
The research shows many of the UK’s birds, bugs, butterflies and small mammals are in a “freefall decline”, with last year the worst on record for breeding birds.
The report, compiled with the help of researchers from the Norwich-based the University of East Anglia, also shows that hedgehogs are disappearing as fast as the tiger, dropping from 36 million in 1950, to just one million today.
BBC Look East’s Kevin Burch reports.”
??? If you look at the CET temperatures for England we went though a cold period after 1950,
The Guardian can’t resist the climate change tag.
“Ecologists stress more work needs to be done to pinpoint the reasons behind the decline, but said likely candidates are habitat loss, poor management of hedgerows and fragmentation of habitat, due to new roads, housing and other developments. Tens of thousands of hedgehogs are killed by road traffic each year.”
Climate change, which increases the likelihood of extreme weather such as heavy rainfall that can flood the homes of animals, is also considered a potential factor.”
This more objective study looks at reasons for decline
Throughout the United Kingdom (UK) hedgehogs are considered common and widespread; however, studies conducted over the past 20 years show they have been subject to significant decline (Hof and Bright, 2012: 79-88). If this rate of depletion continues research indicates the hedgehog population could become extinct by 2020 (The Mammal Society, 2012). The primary cause of their decline is unclear, although contributing factors include road mortality and anthropogenic disturbances, such as habitat destruction and fragmentation (Dowding et al., 2010a: 13-21). Secondary poisoning due to pesticide applications has also been established as another factor impacting on the species decline (Dowding et al., 2010b: 161-66
And twice as many new species will evolve to fight it out for the vacated niches. It’ll be ‘orrible.
I note they’ve chosen a date (2080), by which time telling them they’re wrong will require the services of a clairvoyant!
In other news, anglerfish at 4000m depth are more than a little miffed at the recent stiffling 0.01C temperature increase.
One anglerfish, Mike, was interviewed today and said “I can believe the state of the deep oceans today. At this rate, I’m going to have to evolve hands so I can build an air conditioner. Sheesh.”
As a footnote to my previous post, the East Anglian Daily Times has today printed my email to them on the UEA claims, in their Opinion pages. Success!