From the University of Washington, via Eurekalert, sympathy for snails, turtles, sloths, slow moving howler monkeys, shrews and moles and other slow moving critters that will apparently bake in place due to the 0.7C temperature rise of the past century. They just can’t move fast enough it seems. No mention of adaptation either. Why oh why did nature equip them so poorly? /sarc
Gotta love this reasoning:
Only climate change was considered and not other factors that cause animals to disperse, such as competition from other species.
The natural world doesn’t work that way. You can’t just turn off all the other variables and make projections using only one (unless of course you are doing climate science).
Nearly one-tenth of hemisphere’s mammals unlikely to outrun climate change
A safe haven could be out of reach for 9 percent of the Western Hemisphere’s mammals, and as much as 40 percent in certain regions, because the animals just won’t move swiftly enough to outpace climate change. For the past decade scientists have outlined new areas suitable for mammals likely to be displaced as climate change first makes their current habitat inhospitable, then unlivable. For the first time a new study considers whether mammals will actually be able to move to those new areas before they are overrun by climate change. Carrie Schloss, University of Washington research analyst in environmental and forest sciences, is lead author of the paper out online the week of May 14 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We underestimate the vulnerability of mammals to climate change when we look at projections of areas with suitable climate but we don’t also include the ability of mammals to move, or disperse, to the new areas,” Schloss said.
Indeed, more than half of the species scientists have in the past projected could expand their ranges in the face of climate change will, instead, see their ranges contract because the animals won’t be able to expand into new areas fast enough, said co-author Josh Lawler, UW associate professor of environmental and forest sciences.
In particular, many of the hemisphere’s species of primates – including tamarins, spider monkeys, marmosets and howler monkeys, some of which are already considered threatened or endangered – will be hard-pressed to outpace climate change, as are the group of species that includes shrews and moles. Winners of the climate change race are likely to come from carnivores like coyotes and wolves, the group that includes deer and caribou, and one that includes armadillos and anteaters.
The analysis looked at 493 mammals in the Western Hemisphere ranging from a moose that weighs 1,800 pounds to a shrew that weighs less than a dime. Only climate change was considered and not other factors that cause animals to disperse, such as competition from other species.
To determine how quickly species must move to new ranges to outpace climate change, UW researchers used previous work by Lawler that reveals areas with climates needed by each species, along with how fast climate change might occur based on 10 global climate models and a mid-high greenhouse gas emission scenario developed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The UW researchers coupled how swiftly a species is able to disperse across the landscape with how often its members make such a move. In this case, the scientists assumed animals dispersed once a generation.
It’s understandable, for example, that a mouse might not get too far because of its size. But if there are many generations born each a year, then that mouse is on the move regularly compared to a mammal that stays several years with its parents in one place before being old enough to reproduce and strike out for new territory.
Western Hemisphere primates, for example, take several years before they are sexually mature. That contributes to their low-dispersal rate and is one reason they look especially vulnerable to climate change, Schloss said. Another reason is that the territory with suitable climate is expected to shrink and so to reach the new areas animals in the tropics must generally go farther than in mountainous regions, where animals can more quickly move to a different elevation and a climate that suits them.
Those factors mean that nearly all the hemisphere’s primates will experience severe reductions in their ranges, Schloss said, on average about 75 percent. At the same time species with high dispersal rates that face slower-paced climate change are expected to expand their ranges.
“Our figures are a fairly conservative – even optimistic – view of what could happen because our approach assumes that animals always go in the direction needed to avoid climate change and at the maximum rate possible for them,” Lawler said.
The researchers were also conservative, he said, in taking into account human-made obstacles such as cities and crop lands that animals encounter. For the overall analysis they used a previously developed formula of “average human influence” that highlights regions where animals are likely to encounter intense human development. It doesn’t take into account transit time if animals must go completely around human-dominated landscapes.
“I think it’s important to point out that in the past when climates have changed – between glacial and interglacial periods when species ranges contracted and expanded – the landscape wasn’t covered with agricultural fields, four-lane highways and parking lots, so species could move much more freely across the landscape,” Lawler said.
“Conservation planners could help some species keep pace with climate change by focusing on connectivity – on linking together areas that could serve as pathways to new territories, particularly where animals will encounter human-land development,” Schloss said. “For species unable to keep pace, reducing non-climate-related stressors could help make populations more resilient, but ultimately reducing emissions, and therefore reducing the pace of climate change, may be the only certain method to make sure species are able to keep pace with climate change.”
The third co-author of the paper is Tristan Nuñez, now at University of California, Berkeley. Both Schloss and Nuñez worked with Lawler while earning their master’s degrees. Lawler did this work with support from the UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences using, in part, models he previously developed with funding from the Nature Conservancy and the Cedar Tree Foundation.
For more information: Schloss, cell 440-666-6389, cschloss@uw.edu Lawler, 206-685-4367, jlawler@u.washington.edu (Note: Lawler is away from the office the week of May 14 but will check for messages once or twice a day)
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It is just too bad those poor animals can’t get out of the way. It reminds me of this:
majormike1;
Climate has always and will continue to be in a state of change, and humanity will not be able to develop a dial to control it and make it stay just the way humanity wants. >>>>
Says who? I have a climate control knob in my house. Called a thermostat.
Lest ye think I’m being facetious, consider the facts. Almost all humans live in constructed shelters which are climate controlled 24 x 7. We drive from place to place in climate controlled cars. Much of our food is grown in area which would otherwise be too dry to support those specific crops, but we irrigate them. There are crops grown on swampland… which we drained. And an increasing amounf of our vegetable crops in particular are grown in greenhouses. Can we control the climate on a global basis? Of course not. But we can carve off chunks here and there and control them quite nicely, for our own benefit and the benefit of the animals we raise for anything from companiionship to food.
We’ve been very successful employing this strategy from arctic zones to the tropics. Add to that our ability to ship food from anywhere in the world, to anywhere in the world, via climate controlled shipping containers ranging in size from trucks to ships.
No, we can’t control the climate. But we can carve off chunks of the planet in useful sizes and locations and modify the climate of those chunks to suit our purpose. It would take a MASSIVE change in the climate to be a real serious problem for us humans.
Unless we are stupid enough to cower in fear of the potential consequences because of fear mongering in this paper, a paper so over the top idiotic that ridiculing it seems redundant.
The issue is surely not the rate of adaptation to natural climate change, but the effect of increased human population leading to greatly fragmented habitats, which will make adaptation through spatial relocation much more difficult.
Our winter here in the Sierra Nevada mountains was 10-15 warmer than normal- insanely warm. All the critters are still here. I’ll know we are up the “climate creek” when we only have reptiles running around. By the way, last summer cold. The bears are totally screwed up. Back to splitting more firewood for this summer….
If only I had known that it was THIS easy to be employed as a researcher. I’d have staying college to get a Ph.D and smoked dope. Immagine all the “crisis” paranoia moments that would be dreamed up, written about, and grant funded! Man, going to work for a living was one of my worst ideas ever.
I think all us folks working for a living need to just stop. We can all get jobs for the government dong climate research. Clearly it doesn’t take much skill…
rudkinsm@yahoo.com says:
May 14, 2012 at 3:17 pm
you are mistaken. the good folk here do indeed have a lack of concern for the climate change cr*p but most are indeed promotors of good environmental husbandry, I’m sure. However, you do illustrate all that is wrong with the green theme by combining the two!
The CAGW scam has done immense damage to environmental ‘care’ and awareness that anyone can imagine. Greenp*ss and all their friends jumped on that bandwagon for funding, etc and left the real environmental issues in the ‘to do’ tray!
and you are right – our kin will all suffer the legacy of the carbon scam for many years to come.
And while we wait for these hypothetical extinctions, species goes extinct because of actual environmental problems, and some of these problems are direct consequences of the Fear Of The Warm, e.g. birds and bats getting killed by windmills and not the least enormous areas of valuable ecosystems in the tropics getting converted to agricultural biofuel producing monocultures…
Environmental changes drives evolution. This is a fundamental requirement for the evolution of life on Earth.
Mankind would not be here today if it were not for past climate change.
Life is often more resilient than we give it credit as is obvious from past events where that has occasssionally been very rapid onset of climate change far more extreme than is presently occuring. Inevitably, species will adapt and evolve. Some may drop by the wayside, but in general evolution will strengthen life here on planet Earth.
Luckily for us Australians, kangaroos can hop pretty fast. Although, since they live from the tropics to the sub-temperate range, perhaps they don’t have to.
As mentioned in another thread, we have to cull kangaroos around here. Maximum temperature is about 39C, last night it was -5 and -8 is not unheard of. We have dozens of native critters, sheep, cattle and even wild dogs and horses that some regard as pests, but can’t eradicate.
I like these sorts of studies, and hope they are more widely publicised.
As things get warmer and warmer 90% of all animals will be crowded together at the poles. This will lower the rotational inertia of earth which will speed up so much that the slow 10% will then be flung out to space.
This is all funny, until we’re told that rural human habitations are in the way of animal migrations, which is starting to happen in some jurisdictions in Canada and I’m sure in the US too. The global warming theme is just the flimsy distraction; it will be cited as an established fact to support the new sustainability measures we have to adopt to save our bio-diversity. I think Gale Combs is the only one who gets it. Rio and its Agenda 21 is next on the list, while we’ll still be fighting the last war, bickering with retiring global warming pushers.
I’ll miss sloths. Any animal named after one of the 7 deadly sins can’t be all that bad.
Oh my! Will the Northern Spotted Owl and Klamath Lake sucker fish be ok or should be put some more loggers and farmers out of work?
In the 19th Century, there was an English gentleman who came up with a theory that explains how climate change might affect these animals. Today it’s know as E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N. Geez, Warmistas are as dense as Creationists! “Evolution deniers”!!
I am one of those animals. Climate change has caught up with me: we have just lighted the fire because it’s so bl… cold.
But what does one expect in May in England?
otter17 says:
May 14, 2012 at 5:31 pm
“Poking fun at a paper accepted with the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is one thing. Successfully submitting a rebuttal paper on how their methods are flawed is another. Barring that, the mindset displayed is not exactly open-minded or scientific.”
otter17, you must be kidding. By their logic, mice wouldn’t run away from a forest fire but procreate first; and weeks later, the offspring would consider finding new habitat, because they postulate implicitly that animals don’t change their behaviour when the conditions around them change.
“Successfully submitting a rebuttal paper on how their methods are flawed is another.”
That is indeed difficult as the journals are ruled by the warmists and they don’t take kindly on opposition.
“Barring that, the mindset displayed is not exactly open-minded or scientific.”
As self-evident truths – mice run away from a forest fire – count nothing in todays so-called science, you might be right IF we take your definition of science; namely, that a paper based on ignorance of said truths, is science that should not have been rejected by peer-review.
Or maybe you’d just let anything pass if enough “mights” and “coulds” are interjected.
We heard this same hokum about the decline of White Pine in the northern latitudes. The claim, due to AGW it wasn’t getting cold enough during the winter to kill off the mountain pine beetle eating the tree. Except that it has been known for quite some time that the pest was kept in check by a healthy tree’s normal defense mechanisms. What makes the tree unhealthy? Competition from other species growing in the same area making for a dense undergrowth which in turn makes the area shady and moist. Unhealthy trees as a consequence of the environment died. How did the White Pine maintain it’s preferred climate? FIRE Natural fires clear out the undergrowth keeping the area optimal for the seedlings to germinate and maintain the preferred environmental factors for optimal growth and health.
“Seedlings do not do well in shady moist
forest, hence their need for wildfires that
clear the forest to allow full sunlight on the
young trees. Without openings created by
wildfire, even mature white pine eventually
succumb to insects, fungi, or old age and
are replaced by shade-tolerant species—
grand fir, western hemlock, and western
redcedar. As these competing species grow
and the white pine die, the forest is gradually
changed.
Because white pine seedlings tolerate
frost, you often find them in the lower portion
of the subalpine fir zone (Abies lasiocarpus),
and frequently along cold air drainages, river
bottoms, and mountain meadows.”
http://www.idahoforests.org/img/pdf/rmrs_gtr35.pdf
So what we see here is the White Pine waging a continual war to maintain territory against the fir, the cedars, oaks and maples. Guess who has been suppressing forest fires to quell the war to maintain the Pine’s territory? The squirrels? The bears? NO, the clueless humans who insist fire is bad just like in California and other places with the expected results. The punch line as always when it comes to nature is the meddling incompetence of MAN that is at issue, but they always mean well by demanding peace at any price. btw- I was clued into this by an old Marty Stouffer Wild America production while watching TV recently discussing the decline of the tree with ZERO reference to AGW.
For your listening enjoyment: Rush – The Trees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-qf7-66NMI
Faux Science Slayer
Check your facts. I believe that nano-diamonds come from an asteroid impact, not a solar event.
Otherwise, I agree with you, these researchers don’t have a clue how these mammals will react. But if we modify the calendar they read to know when to mate and when to seak shelter from the noon day sun, I’m sure they’ll survive and prosper. /sarc
Bill
Have you ever noticed the vastly different ecology as you approach your neaby city? It is like going from the arctic to a jungle. Polar bears (what few remain) outside, palms tree inside! The Ubran Heat Island effect in action!
Oh wait…….. the difference is only 3-4 degrees……..
Bob Tisdale says:
May 15, 2012 at 4:22 am
I’ll miss sloths. Any animal named after one of the 7 deadly sins can’t be all that bad.
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I’m with you, Bob, although even a sloth should be able to move fast enough to adjust to treelines that allegedly move a few metres a year at most. Besides, sloths are cool, like John Travolta in an Elmore Leonard film. Ever seen a sloth look worried?
Still, in this frenetic age, perhaps they should be replaced on the list of vices with Honey Badgers.
In studying the future plight of our beleaguered primates, instead of focusing on dispersal rates alone, perhaps they could have pulled a few of said primates aside and requested some tips on constructing their analysis. They probably wouldn’t have been much of a help, but it’s hard to imagine that they could have been seriously more inept than the authors on their own.
Although I haven’t gone back to do a comprehensive count, my general impression is that we have been gifted with at least 3-5 of these pieces of PR science dreck per week for 2-3 years now. Like this one, most have not required a level of intelligence much beyond the simian to discover the gaping logical flaws included in them. Despite this dismal record we have also had the privilege of experiencing almost as frequent appearances by various CAGW fanboys announcing that anyone who has the temerity to disagree with them is either a knuckle dragging mouth breathing moron or the veritable spawn of Satan who lusts after the highest possible level of misery and death for all of humanity.
Personally, I find the suggestion that I should be convinced of anything by this ongoing deluge of idiocy entirely laughable. To those who do find themselves inclined to be convinced I would offer some helpful tips.
1) Place a block on your cable box so you will never accidentally tune into a channel that is broadcasting an infomercial.
2) Under no circumstance accept one of those free vacation trips that are offered contingent on attending a sales pitch for timeshares or real estate, unless you really want to be known as the “King of Underwater Real Estate”
3) Stay as far away from New York City as you can. With your obviously low level of resistance to persuasion you would likely be sold the Brooklyn Bridge within twenty minutes of appearing on the street there.
Eric Huxter says:
May 15, 2012 at 12:54 am
The issue is surely not the rate of adaptation to natural climate change, but the effect of increased human population leading to greatly fragmented habitats, which will make adaptation through spatial relocation much more difficult.
So, you’re saying that animals aren’t smart enough to cross roads?
I live in New Jersey, the most densely-populated state in the US. I have a chain-link fenced back yard, and everything from shrews to box turtles to skunks to woodchucks to deer get into it (I’m not counting the three coyotes, just the constant visitors), and the nearest stretch of woods is 200 meters away, on the other side of a canal ten meters wide — the closest bridge is 500 meters away.
Barriers slow animals down, but not by much.
I’m worried now about being run down by a fleeing Thomsons Gazelle. What should I do?
The turtle are safe – http://youtu.be/Pf4yvaasODo
JohnBUK says:
May 15, 2012 at 2:17 pm
I’m worried now about being run down by a fleeing Thomsons Gazelle. What should I do?
—
Throw a sloth under its feet.
Easy solution – snail mail.