Canadian Harp Seals may have “read” the predictions of the coming decades of stabilization of global temperatures and perhaps some cooling. Animals like the Harp Seal have experienced many millions of years of climatic change and, through the complex processes of evolution and natural selection, may have developed an ability to sense coming changes.
This is from The Boston Channel:
Small numbers of juvenile harp seals are typically found each winter stranded along the coast of the northeastern United States. But this year, well over 100 adult harp seals – not juveniles – have been spotted … In some areas they’re reporting three times the normal number of sightings … we’ve had four sightings of adult harp seals in North Carolina, which we’ve never had before. We typically don’t see them that far south. …
For now, there is no clear explanation for why more seals are showing up in U.S. waters, said Gordon Waring, who heads the seal program at NOAA’s fisheries science center in Woods Hole, Mass.
They could be making their way south because of climatic conditions or perhaps in search of food, Waring said.
“These animals are known to wander a lot,” Waring said. “Whether they’re following food down or whatever, we don’t really have a good understanding of it.”
Garron said she and the seal organizations will look at environmental trends, such as water temperatures, to see if it’s influencing the harp seal range.
Regardless of the reason, biologists are taking notice, Doughty said.
Read more from The Boston Channel here.
Here is a 2009 WUWT item about Henrik Svensmark and his Global Cosmic Ray theory of how reduced Solar activity leads to cooling periods. Svensmark says “In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable …”
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Caleb says:
March 22, 2011 at 9:41 am
The snow becomes this stuff called “firn” for a while, before it becomes even the fragile ice at the top of the ice cores. Firn is pervious, and can “inhale” every time high pressure passes over and “exhale” every time low pressure passes over. >>>
Oh, its soooo much more complicated, that’s just the tip of the…no pun intended… ice berg. On top of the fern being pervious, so are the snow flakes. And this isn’t my area at all, I’m taking the word of an acquaintance who recently passed. My understanding from him is that the lattic structure of the snow flakes captures water within it which remains liquid. Since it is liquid, and can exchange gases with the atmosphere, and water absorbs CO2…you’ve got CO2 in air bubbles representative of some level of mixing over time, and you’ve got CO2 in ice crystals representative of some level of mixing over time, and THEN you’ve got the air bubbles in contact with liquid water trapped in the lattice structure of the ice and possibly exchanging gases and THEN you’ve got ice that under sufficient pressure forms clathrates which trap both air bubbles and liquid water differently than snow or ice and…
None of which would alter Leif’s contention that Be can be looked at with a resolution of 1 year. But CO2…I think your 60 year number may be correct, some ice core analysis claims 30 years under certain conditions. Bottom line however is at best CO2 reconstructions from ice core have value on scales of hundreds of years or more, anything less just seems improbable in my mind.
Joshua says:
March 22, 2011 at 8:19 am
…accounting for obvious influences such changes in the number shot by polar bears.
Yikes! the polar bears have tooled up!
crap proxy data … when are we going to realize that they are all just making stuff up as they go along … witch doctors, the lot of them …
I don’t assume changes in habits/migration/location of individual flora and fauna are related to GW, let alone AGW. I think that when there is a prevalent trend in the available data about such changes, it lends weight to theories that the climate is, in fact changing. The degree and rapidity of those changes is further evidence for the anthropogenic nature of climate change.
Discussing individual examples that are in contrast to prevalent trends is not, necessarily, cherry-picking. But doing so on a blog dedicated to climate change “skepticism,” which inconsistently mixes skepticism about whether there is any warming with skepticism about the degree of any such warming with skepticism about whether any changes might be anthropogenic, and making oblique references to that individual example being “predictions of cooling,” and without mention that the particular example is in contrast to prevailing trends, and without discussion of whether that particular example might in fact be an example of changes due to warming, looks a whole lot like cherry-picking to me.
No different than when someone shows pictures of polar bears on chunks of ice to dramatize polar bear susceptibility to climate change. It may or not be cherry-picking, but without mentioning the data about their populations and/or causal factors such as increases or decreases in hunting rates it can justifiably be described as cherry-picking.
Pamela Gray: Bats have not shown any propensity for adapting to global warming. Just look at the numbers piling up on the ground in wind farms.
For those interested in an understanding the evolutionary process, George Gaylord Simpson (The Meaning of Evolution) provides insight into specie survivability over time as derived from the fossil population record. The time profiles of specie survival are quite interesting, and for spec. Homo, downright alarming. But, of course, this time it’s different. To see those survival profiles plotted against the paleoclimate record might be interesting.
As for me, born 73 years ago and raised in the natural woods of northern Minnesota, I now live quite happily in southwest Florida. It is a case of mouth and money and, having served as Sonar Expert with the US Navy Submarine Service with near 17 years of sea duty IN every major ocean on the planet, I opine that the collective we doesn’t know very much, so I hedge my bet. For illiteration on the natural world, this the site to read, even though at times it feels like wading through a sea of split hairs.
Is this a coincidence?
http://www.oregon-inlet.com/journal/article.cfm?article_id=2683
Bluefins and Orcas off N.C.?
Correct me if I am mistaken.
About 2 years ago there was an article in the New Zealand news about some migratory birds (Godwits I think) that had arrived earlier in spring than they had been recorded before.
Of course, the reason for this was attributed to global warming.
Only one problem as far as I could work out.
They were coming from Alaska.
Clever little beggars. I mean, what possible mechanism could they have of detecting early arriving warm weather deep in the Southern hemisphere from the top end of the Northern Hemisphere?
Seriously.
Now I don’t know what triggers their migration instinct, but my two guesses would be daylight and temperature.
I’m pretty sure the length of the day has not changed significantly (not outside normal seasonal boundaries), so that leaves temperature/weather.
And that leaves a real question. Do birds migrate because they sense the conditions are becoming inhospitable where they are, or do they migrate because they somehow know that conditions will be better elsewhere?
It is a truly important question, because, if the globe is warming, that would mean the warm weather should last longer into autumn. If cold weather triggers migration, then you would expect later migrations at each end rather than earlier.
So we either have warmer weather, and a new mystery in birds that can predict climate half a world away, or we have birds that are telling us the weather is colder in spite of all our fancy temperature measurements and climate models.
My guess? I’ll go with the birds and the seals.
Correct. Every prokaryotic cell (e.g., bacteria) and eukaryotic cell (plants, animals) has been evolving since the origin of life on Earth some 3 or 4 billion years ago.
Well, yes and no. Five million years ago, the last common ancestor of humans and chimps lived on Earth, but he or she was much more like a modern-day chimp than a modern human. Thus, chimps had as much time since our common ancestor to evolve, and they did, of course evolve, but, I think you have to agree, humans are much more different from our common ancestor than chimps. For example, our brain size more than tripled and we lost most of our fur, while modern chimps have brains much closer to the size of our common ancestor and are still furry.
Similarly, bacteria have had a few billions of years to evolve, and they have evolved and continue to do so today, but they are more similar to their ancestors of millions of years ago than we homo sapiens are to homo erectus a few hundred thousand years ago.
All animals inherit physical traits via genes from their parents and behavioral characeristics via memes from their parents and other conspecifics. Memes are inherited via imprinting, imitation, artifacts, and learning. Many birds will imprint on, and follow, whomever they see during their early days of life. Normally, it is their biological mother, but, in a lab setting, it could be a human.
More complex behaviors including hiding, swimming, sounding a warning, and so on, are often acquired by imitation.
Artifacts experienced in infancy, such as nests, burrows, and so on, become models for living quarters later in life.
Many, perhaps most, memes are acquired without the aid of reason or understanding of why they are the “right” behaviors. They are simply observed and stored away in specific brain structures that have evolved for that purpose, and then unquestioningly followed throughout life. True learning (defined here as acquiring a skill or knowledge based on reason and understanding) is most well developed in humans. However, even for us, it may be that most of our behaviors are acquired prior to the full development of reasoning, and thus are not true learning as I have defined it.
The point I was making is that Harp Seals have lived pretty much as Pagophilus groenlandicus for many, many more climate change cycles than humans as Homo sapiens. While we were evolving from living in caves and huts to houses and high-rises, they were still flipping around in their seal skins, much as they do today.
Why does a given Harp Seal leave his or her home territory, or get driven out by others? Why do they go north or south or east or west. Why do some stop after a few miles but others travel thousands? Why do more migrate further in some years than others? Why have only juveniles been seen in New England until this year, when adults have been observed there and as far south as the Carolinas?
Yes, it is possible that Harp Seals migrate simply by following food sources and avoiding predators. On the other hand, it is, IMHO, likely they have evolved an ability to detect clues related to climate change, analogous to the way some animals can detect pre-seismic clues, such as infrasound, to which humans are insensitive. There is evidence that animals as varied as toads and elephants “know” when an earthquake is imminent and scurry to safety. Most of these animals have never personally experienced an earthquake, yet, by observing the behaviors of their elders when certain vibrations or other subliminal events occur, they inherit the meme that makes them sensitive to these clues that has helpes protect their species from seismic events in the past.
I don’t think flora and fauna predict the weather, I think they respond to it. The result has been greater subsequent Winter survival rates in those that responded to cool Spring/Summer weather.
Well, having spent some time in the genetics courses, etc., I’d have to say all the theories being argued are going no where; however, let us discuss Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I would be inclined to stick with “keep it simple stupid” and point out that the food and shelter are base elements. Any creature will hang where the food is, even if they are the food themselves. I could go on and on with examples of late where seaside creatures come and go, but. that would be boring: kind of like all the rhetoric above.
Wallowa County is not a mecca for wind turbines. There are some in Union County. However, little brown bats, the species we have around here, have not been known to be among the surprisingly high fatality numbers under wind farm towers.
I am still of the opinion that these little brown bats are not having babies in the numbers they once did because of cooling temperatures and lack of food emergence at the right time for high birth rates to be successful.
One of the sad signs I see are the number of late birthed baby bats left behind after migration happens. Mothers will stop feeding these babies so that they themselves can fill up on food getting ready for migration out of the county. Bats usually don’t stay in Wallowa County during Winter months. Too cold. By the time I find them, they have already died. So little. Little brown bats aren’t that big to begin with and the babies are very cute and very small.
Dave Springer says:
March 21, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Therefore humans had an equal opportunity for evolution to give them the gift of climate prediction.
So I was just wondering if you had been feeling any unexplained urges to pack your bags and move to Africa.
But, given the opportunity, that’s what people do. Not necessarily to Africa, but to a splendid sunny place with plenty of clean water and trees for shade (but never too densely packed to leave room for expanses of soft green grass). Either to a shore or valleys in a mountain. It is called tourism, driven by an unexplained urge (a yearning for Eden). A multi-trillion dollar business, isn’t it?
“Pamela Gray says:
March 21, 2011 at 7:12 pm
And guess what animal loves to EAT these seals?”
Please give me a hint. Are they white? Do they follow their source of food? Has their population been increasing to a point of saturation.
This post has a large discussion on evolutionary traits and the wonderful world of animals. It appears that those closest to us are evolving rapidly to come to terms with the environment we put them in. Google cats with thumbs and be surprised.
Stick to engineering Ira 🙂
Re: Bat around wind farms not evolving.
WRONG.
Those dead bats did not evolve, but the ones not killed yet are evolving to avoid wind farms. So, evolution in action.
This is similar to the guy asked to design armor for WW II fighter planes. Too much armor would make the planes too heavy to fight.
So, he went down to the airfield, examined the planes returned from action, and noted where the bullet holes were. Then, he designed armor plates for those parts of the plane which didn’t have bullet holes.
Evolution.
…
Fixing italics
Joel … said “Those dead bats did not evolve, but the ones not killed yet are evolving to avoid wind farms. So, evolution in action”.
It is only evolution if they have some advantageous trait that the other bats don’t …. they then pass on the “miss the turbine” genes to their offspring … which then survive and pass it on to their offspring etc.
One factor could be the lack of sea ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence where they typically give birth to their young. This winter, like last winter saw very little ice form in the region. In 2010 Environment Canada reported: In fact, average ice conditions in late February were the lowest ever observed in 40 years of record-keeping. Remarkably, the ice coverage in the Gulf was 47.5 per cent less than that of the previous low ice record which was set in the winter of 1968-69. The sparse, thin ice wreaked havoc with the seal population, as thousands were forced onto the shore-fast ice to give birth only to lose most of their young when the thin ice largely broke up before the pups could swim on their own. Canada Fisheries reported that on the first day of spring, there were only about 600 seals in the southern Gulf, when there should have been 30,000.
Joshua says:
March 22, 2011 at 6:10 am
“So just to make sure that I get it right – studies show that a significant majority of changes in animal and plant habits are consistent with global warming, but a post about one example, that may not be consistent with the predominance of the data, is just interesting and not an example of cherry-picking.”
Joshua claims that “…studies show that a significant majority of changes in animal and plant habits are consistent with global warming….” Joshua does briefly mention polar bears. But if I’ve understood him correctly, Joshua does not view polar bears as being a poster child for GW.
That said, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not fair to accuse Joshua of cherry-picking. Why not? Because thus far, he has not given one specific example to bolster his sweeping claim. No cherries; ergo no cherry-picking. 🙂
RE: “4 years of local cooling (which is primarily cold late Springs, cool Summers, and an early start to Fall freezing temperatures)”
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When I was a kid (1970s) there were what I’d term moderate “rainy seasons” here in Nor Cal. The rains would start ~ November and end ~ April. Same pattern continued into early adult years (1980s). Then in the mid to late 90s, something changed. The “mean” onset of the rains seemed to get pulled in toward the Summer Solstice a bit, but more dramatically, the “mean” onset of the “Dry Season” definitely got later and later. Sure we had the odd year – such as ’06 or ’07 – where the storm door would nearly shut in March (but even then, the inside sliders and Tonopah Lows might hit as late as June). But in general, we lost our “Spring” (a time before the coastal fog, but after the rains, with very warm days and cool nights). Here we go again, from all the current signs.
By the way this has caused great harm to ag, other than viticulture (and even there, yields are lower but mercifully balanced by higher quality).
Jon says:
March 23, 2011 at 9:41 am
“It is only evolution if they have some advantageous trait that the other bats don’t …. they then pass on the “miss the turbine” genes to their offspring … which then survive and pass it on to their offspring etc.”
“Miss the turbine” would be an instinct. Like birds are all hatched knowing how to build nests characteristic of their species and beavers are born knowing how to build dams.
I’ve asked gene theory hangers-on many times the following question and never got anything near a satisfying answer:
How are instincts encoded in genes?
Dave Springer says: ““Miss the turbine” would be an instinct. Like birds are all hatched knowing how to build nests characteristic of their species and beavers are born knowing how to build dams. ”
A bit of trivia: Actually, beavers do not know how to build dams. That is, it is not dam building that is the instinct. If you place a speaker (on dry land) near where beavers hang out, and have the speaker playing the sound of running water, the beavers will drag stuff over and pile it on top of the speaker until they can no longer hear the sound.
They are known to wander a lot, and could be searching for food, says the article.
I say also that ocean currents vary so could push ice south. (When is iceberg season, when big chunks off glaciers or such migrate into areas where ships travel? The Canadian government pays for aircraft to monitor the ice and provide maps to mariners.)
I don’t see this as big news, except to environmentalists who like to assume animals aren’t industrious for surviving.