Well not really, but the headline above is almost as silly as the paper. From the “I can’t stop laughing department”, some “it can’t be anything else but global warming climate change” silliness in Nature. No mention of PDO or other cycles.
In other news, Former Governor Sarah Palin is blamed for starting all this by making it Marmot Day instead of Groundhog Day in Alaska. As everyone knows, marmots can’t forecast a darn thing, but they can model. /sarc From a KU press release:
Climate change causes larger, more plentiful marmots, study shows
Finding by University of Kansas researchers is likely to have implications for many creatures that hibernate
LAWRENCE — This week, one of the world’s foremost scientific journals will publish results of a decades-long research project founded at the University of Kansas showing that mountain rodents called marmots are growing larger, healthier and more plentiful in response to climate change.
The groundbreaking study, published in Nature, is the first to reveal that changes in seasonal timing can increase body weight and population size simultaneously in a species — findings likely to have implications for a host of other creatures, especially those that hibernate.
Established by Kenneth Armitage, KU professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology, the long-standing investigation tracks yellow-bellied marmots in Colorado.
“We started this research in 1962, and every summer we’d record basic demography such as the age of the animals, gender, body mass, who survived and who reproduced,” Armitage said. “At the time we started, we had no idea that climate change was going to be a problem. But we collected that basic demography to use as a foundation for other kinds of study.”
Largely because of the KU researcher, yellow-bellied marmots have proven to be a valuable model organism for understanding larger questions. Armitage said that he first chose to study the marmot because it lives in easy-to-find burrows and is active in the daytime, so it is readily observable.
“I didn’t intend to spend 40 years studying marmots, but new questions kept coming up — physiological, hibernation, genetics and so on,” Armitage said. “It turned out that long-term studies of our kind are quite rare. Yet, it’s precisely the kind of data that you need to determine what climate change is going to do.”
The climate-change findings result from collaboration between a number of international researchers who used fieldwork by Armitage to underpin their analyses. Both Arpat Ozgul, lead author of the study from Imperial College London, and Dan Blumstein, a co-author from the University of California-Los Angeles, previously have worked with Armitage on the marmot project.
Using data collected between 1976 and 2008, the authors conclude that a longer growing season has boosted marmots’ individual size, overall strength and general population. The average weight of fully grown marmots jumped from 6.82 pounds in the early years of the study to 7.56 pounds in the later half of the study.
Additionally, the population growth of marmots increased from 0.56 marmots per year from 1976 to 2001 to 14.2 marmots per year from 2001 to 2008.
“The warming results in earlier snowmelt, which means that plants appear sooner and the marmots come out of hibernation earlier,” said Armitage. “They have more fat left which provides them energy to start foraging. Then they can start reproducing so their young are born earlier and have time to get fat enough to survive hibernation. Most importantly, the reproductive female can survive better. Being able to wean her young earlier, she has a longer season and survival of adult females has increased over the last years.”
Although Armitage is happy to see the yellow-bellied marmot thrive, the KU researcher cautioned that the boom in marmots is temporary; he expects that warming could harm them in the long run because of changes in snow patterns.
“This benefit to marmots is probably short-lived,” he said. “Snow patterns both benefit and harm marmots. Prolonged snow cover in the spring increases mortality and reduces reproduction. But if there’s less snowmelt to nourish plants that marmots forage in the summer, it will severely affect them. In droughts, we’ve had very high mortality.”
So, what about the worst species of all: The Yellow-bellied Politician? They seem to have been growing fatter in recent years too.
Love the sarcasm in many of the posts.
“But if there’s less snowmelt to nourish plants that marmots forage in the summer, it will severely affect them. In droughts, we’ve had very high mortality.” — so basically it’ll work out in the wash the various pluses and minuses to their population? Presumably their predators would be increasing in population somewhat too.
Maybe we should get Mann to study the history of marmot rings? Is there a factor to account for the Urban Marmot Island effect? Do their formulas use “fuzzy logic”? Does this signal the beginning of Marmotgate? Would a FOIA request to the marmots for all their communications with regard to this issue be honored? Do I really need more caffeine this morning? 😉
nico says:
July 21, 2010 at 9:41 pm
“What a sad collection of knee-jerk anti-science comments. Phenology researchers have been observing and recording changes in animal and plant behaviour for decades, and are quite familiar with normal variability, just as climate researchers are familiar with normal climate variability. The effects of human activities on the atmosphere, and therefore on climate, are causing concern. See Walther et al, Ecological responses to recent climate change, Nature 2002.”
Sonny, you need to spend more time reading journal articles. Or just be a lot older and live through more than one oceanic oscillation. Elk and deer populations follow the PDO long term oscillation. Has nothing whatsoever to do with AGW. Marmot populations wax and wane in similar fashion. So do crop destroying insects. Even nightcrawlers follow this pattern.
If rodents are getting bigger, this could be good news for RATs the renewable energy scheme……
http://libertygibbert.wordpress.com/rare-scribbling/fenbeagle/handy-green-recycling-advice/
Mike McMillan: July 22, 2010 at 6:29 am
I hardly expected WUWT to go the effort to find a snaggle-tooth marmot to place atop a post.
It’s not atop a post — it’s atop a rock.
Ummmmm — what?
It all seemed like good news for the marmot, but I was waiting for the punch line and here it is:
“Although Armitage is happy to see the yellow-bellied marmot thrive, the KU researcher cautioned that the boom in marmots is temporary; he expects that warming could harm them in the long run because of changes in snow patterns…
Snow patterns both benefit and harm marmots.”
We skeptics just need to understand climate change will always have negative consequences, never good. When a species is thriving and populations are increasing there will inevitably be a change for the worse.
Climate change simultaneously means more snow with drought, coupled with earlier springs and later snowmelt. It has the potential to both benefit and harm humanity, in equal extremes, on any given day, but it will ultimately destroy the planet. Be afraid.
I can’t believe you skeptics are not taking this seriously. If we keep changing the climate we could end up with this. See, the authors say climate change caused something. Our modern lifestyle is going to come back and bite us on the arse. All it takes is a single degree of warmth, and we’re toast. Do it for the children.
Bull-Size Rodent Discovered — Biggest YetJames Owen
for National Geographic News January 16, 2008
A one-ton “fossil rat” has been discovered in South America, scientists announced today.
The prehistoric, bull-size creature—the world’s largest recorded rodent—has been identified from a well-preserved skull. The megarodent lived in lowland rain forests between two and four million years ago, perhaps using its massive teeth to fend off saber-toothed cats and giant, flightless, meat-eating birds, researchers say. The newfound species, called Josephoartigasia monesi, is reported today in a study led by Andrés Rinderknecht of the National Museum of Natural History and Anthropology in Montevideo, Uruguay.
The rodent weighed about 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms), based on an analysis of its 21-inch-long (53-centimeter-long) skull, according to the study, published in the new issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: B.
“The future can bring big surprises. But at present J. monesi is the largest recorded rodent,” he said. The new discovery should provide important new clues to the growth processes that produced such massive rodents, he said. Climate change likely also contributed to the demise of massive rodents, the paleontologist said.
Then what’s next, this?
RELATED
Fossil Mammal Resembling Dog-Hare Hybrid Found in Bolivia (September 19, 2006)
/sarc
The following is a fairly complete synopsis of oceanic oscillations on marine and animal populations. The food chain has learned to adjust to these oscillations either by fertility control, predation patterns, and/or dietary changes.
While I still hate marmots and shoot any and all that enter my barn, their population numbers, size, and habits have nothing to do with me or AGW.
http://www.iphc.washington.edu/Staff/hare/html/papers/pcworkshop/pcworkshop.pdf
“”” In other news, Former Governor Sarah Palin is blamed for starting all this by making it Marmot Day instead of Groundhog Day in Alaska. As everyone knows, marmots can’t forecast a darn thing, but they can model. /sarc From a KU press release: “””
Well that simply is not true; Marmots are great forecasters ! Back in the dark ages; round about the time when the Chinese invaded Mongolia; those northern nomadic tribes were great hunters and trappers; and traded in furs, including Marmots.
Once in a while; every few years or so, a Trapper would come back into town from his trap rounds; and tell the villagers that he had observed some Marmots up on a mountain that were all acting silly as if they were drunk on something.
At that news; the villagers would collect up all the recently collected pelts, in the town center, and burn the whole lot up; then they would burn the entire village to the ground; and move off into some adjacent valley, and start all over again.
Nobody knew why; it was just part of the tribal lore that they had learned from their ancestors; the Gods would be angry if they didn’t follow the ritual.
So when the Chinese invaded, and took over the place, and confiscated all the furs for themselves to send back to China; nobody thought to mention the ancient traditions that must be followed; and so when the Marmots started acting silly again; nobody dared to tell their Chinese masters, that they had to burn the town down.
The furs went back to China; along with the Bubonic Plague that the Marmots were the vector for; and those furs subsequently made it to Europe; and the great Plagues took off in Europe.
So Marmots are great predictors; if you know how to read them.
Every now and then the ground squirrels in the Kings Canyon National Park, all come down with Bubonic Plague and they have to close regions of the Park to campers. Plague needs a burrowing rodent like vector that hibernates through the winter; so the fleas that carry the virus don’t all die during the winter cold.
Joke
A local elderly man and his wife Edith went to Yellow Stone. While there they attended a briefing on the local animals. They learned about bears, eagles, and the yellow bellied Marmot. After coming home the man was in the local tavern sharing his adventures.
“We went on a day long hike and saw lots of animals. We came upon a barely visible little hump of fur that had a golden brown color to it. I crept through the brush to get a closer look at the furry little creature when I kind of stumbled into the clearing. Up stood a big old grizzly bear that I thought was the yellow bellied marmot! He reared up to his full height and bellowed “ROOAAARRR” at me. I sh** my pants!”
The locals all chimed in, “Man we would have too if a grizzly had confronted us!”
To which he replied, “No, not back then. Just now when I stood up and said ‘roar'”!
What if it’s the other way around? What if the Marmots are causing global warming? I mean, if they’re getting bigger, and eating more plants, isn’t that reducing the number of plants on earth? If there are less plants to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere……..hmmmm……..
This guy definitely needs more funding!
“”” Gail Combs says:
July 21, 2010 at 10:42 pm
alarmist bells are ringing! “””
Gail; I don’t know how you find this Legal Treaty and Constitution stuff; but I sure do appreciate that you know how to do that.
Well I do keep a copy of the Constitution and the Declaration in my pocket; and am very familiar with those; but it’s not so easy to find how the Court has addressed some of these issues. Your post pretty much nails it; now if we can just get the Congress, and the Administration to abide by their oath’s of office and uphold the Constitution !
George
Gail Combs says:
July 21, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Gail you are under the mistaken impression that there is still the rule of law in this country.
no one pays any attention the Constitution, and no one has for a very long time.
The JBS has been around for a loooooooong time serving as the repository for a lot of her stuff. That, coupled with ‘populism’ enjoying a modern-day resurgence …
.
George E. Smith says:
July 22, 2010 at 9:51 am
Gail; I don’t know how you find this Legal Treaty and Constitution stuff; but I sure do appreciate that you know how to do that….
____________________________________________________
As I said in another post I am part of a group of farmers who have been at this type of research for about a decade. That combined research is why I have a pretty good handle on the larger picture.
By the way I love the story about the Bubonic Plague that the Marmots were the vector for. Sometimes that “old folk wisdom” isn’t as stupid as people think.
Some one mentioned that England has been going for 1000 years or more. One wonders if the “House of Lords” everyone hates may have something to do with it. A “sitting lord” used to be someone who was older, hopefully with accumulated wisdom, and since he did not have to be elected could veto dumb ideas. I think the US Supreme Court was sort of a take off on that concept.
The House of Commons of course is supposed to be a check on the power of the lords.
George E. Smith says:
July 22, 2010 at 9:36 am
George that is the first I have heard of the Marmot bubonic plague connection. I love the story. Do you have a link or reference to it?
There was a similar ritual with the Navajo and Hanta virus, which basically said slovenly greedy ways would bring death and the mouse was the messenger, meaning having excess food around increased mice populations. Death by the gods or Hanta virus, either way, it was an unseeable mysterious connection, and their only reliable control was a prescribed behavior with correlated results. I think much insight can be gained from those rituals.
“”” Gail Combs says:
July 22, 2010 at 10:20 am
George E. Smith says:
July 22, 2010 at 9:51 am
Gail; I don’t know how you find this Legal Treaty and Constitution stuff; but I sure do appreciate that you know how to do that….
____________________________________________________
As I said in another post I am part of a group of farmers who have been at this type of research for about a decade. That combined research is why I have a pretty good handle on the larger picture.
By the way I love the story about the Bubonic Plague that the Marmots were the vector for. Sometimes that “old folk wisdom” isn’t as stupid as people think.
Some one mentioned that England has been going for 1000 years or more. One wonders if the “House of Lords” everyone hates may have something to do with it. A “sitting lord” used to be someone who was older, hopefully with accumulated wisdom, and since he did not have to be elected could veto dumb ideas. I think the US Supreme Court was sort of a take off on that concept.
The House of Commons of course is supposed to be a check on the power of the lords.
Jim Steele says:
July 22, 2010 at 10:40 am
George E. Smith says:
July 22, 2010 at 9:36 am
George that is the first I have heard of the Marmot bubonic plague connection. I love the story. Do you have a link or reference to it?
There was a similar ritual with the Navajo and Hanta virus, which basically said slovenly greedy ways would bring death and the mouse was the messenger, meaning having excess food around increased mice populations. Death by the gods or Hanta virus, either way, it was an unseeable mysterious connection, and their only reliable control was a prescribed behavior with correlated results. I think much insight can be gained from those rituals. “””
I’m far too dumb to be able to make this stuff up. There was a very famous book about the history of the world as it was influenced by major diseases and pestilences. Among the few things I have not remebered is either the name of the book or its author; but it is a modern book not something from my precambrian school days. I don’t have the book; but somebody loaned it to me and it is a gret read; so the story is quite real.
In Europe of course it was the Norwegian Grey rat or somesuch that carried the fleas with the Bubonic plague; but it originated in some remote Mongolian valley surviving through the winter freeze on the wrm tummies of hibernating Marmots.
The message of the story of course is how much of our social behavioral mores actually derive from some primitive tribal custom; that nobody understsood; but nobody transgressed, for fear of angering the gods. So the folk lore passed all this stuff down to us; so we don’t go marrying our sisters or brothers; because somehow so far back nobody knows when; inbreeding brought genetic catastrophies. A lot fo what we regard as ancient custom, can be traced to survival discoveries.
Well aren’t we facing that today ? I’m sure we are befouling the oceans; and raping the productivity of the seas; and the climate issue is of the same nature; except I am quite confident that we are not, and cannot alter that in any destructive way.
You know how Leif Svalgaard is constantly cautioning us about assigning cause to the sun. We can calculate the 0.072 deg c fluctuation that would accompany the normal solar cycle TSI variation if everything behaved BB radiation equlibrated. And maybe solar magnetic effects via some sort of cosmic ray variation affect cloud cover.
I think Leif is quite right; although those small effects are certainly operating; but I believe that the water evap/cloud/precip cycle is such a powerful feedback control of earth’s mean Temperature range; that it is quite capable of taking care of even quite large changes in solar behavior.
I don’t think anybody has claimed to be able to detect the 0.072 Black Body Temeprature adjustment that could conceivably accompany TSI cycling; we can simply calculate that assuming some equilibrium situation which of course we never have.
So I believe that we could have some sizeable change in solar TSI; and it would create a climate blip; up or down as the case may be; but after time has allowed the ocean and ground heat content to readjust; to the new supply rate; the cloud feedback would take over control and we would be right back at almost exactly the same temperature range we now have; but with just a change in the amount of global cloud cover; either up or down, depending on which way the sun went.
We might now be seeing the blip from a quiet sun; but if that condition persisted; I’m confident that eventually the clouds would get it under control
What, no hat tip?
REPLY: Sorry, no offense intended. I found it on Eurekalert and followed to the KU website, I didn’t see your tip (until you pointed it out) – Anthony
Hey! Throw another fat marmot on the barbie!
Hmmmm… Barbequed marmot is a Mongolian dish.
Here’s to global warming (of meat)
http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=3031035&sponsor=
Global warming alarmists do not want you to know this: Just look up 20 year and 60 year cycles on Scholar Google and the peer-reviewed scientific papers come rolling in by the tidal wave. These 20/60 cycles are totally driven by the Sun, not CO2. These cycles effect all flora and fauna, on land and in the sea, hurricanes, fishing, foresting, harvesting, breeding, monsoons, droughts, you name it. And these intellectually starved “scientists” at Nature, instead of attaching the obvious natural cycles of the Sun, stretch the limits of imagination to attach Marmot growth to a trace gas that, according to ice core data, incrementally increases about 800 years after incremental temperature increases. What a bunch of boobs!
Meanwhile, the Sun is relentlessly grinding into a Grand Solar Minimum and the next Little Ice Age, or worse. When are these “scientists” going to pull the cushy Federal Grant morphine drips from their arms, sober up and dry out, and set out to discover the impending cooling that will kill off our argriculture and send the world into a famine, and get off this myth about Mann-made climate change. It’s the Sun, stupid, driven by planetary mechanics. Live with it!
“In other news, Former Governor Sarah Palin is blamed for starting all this by making it Marmot Day instead of Groundhog Day in Alaska. As everyone knows, marmots can’t forecast a darn thing, but they can model.”
Someone needs to call Sarah and tell her that Groundhogs are marmots.
J.C.
Jim Steele says:
July 22, 2010 at 10:40 am “Do you have a link or reference to it?”
This isn’t exactly the same story but it is similar:
http://www.pilotguides.com/destination_guide/asia/mongolia/marmot.php
I didn’t follow any other links with my initial search; using —
mongolia marmots china “Bubonic Plague”
That got 21,500 hits.
Anthony, no worries. I just get a little excited when I spot something first. Which is pretty rare with your readers scouring the press all day.
A marmot once bit my sister…
Well, I think this is interesting. More CO2, from warmer oceans gives more trees.
More food, warmer (better) climate. Bigger animals, bigger trees and so on. Before you know it, they will conclude that warmer is better……
Re: George E. Smith says:
July 22, 2010 at 9:36 am
George, I have have hunted and trapped 30+ years. When a trapped or hunted animal is killed, the fleas soon leave the cooling carcass seeking a new warm host. That’s why we left the carcasses outside the fur shed overnight, so we wouldn’t have to deal with the fleas when skinning.
There are no fleas on skinned pelts.