From Aarhus University, and the department of weighted (by the kilogram) peer review comes a really heavy new report. See actual photo caption at right, bold mine, I kid you not. I loved this quote from the press release: ‘Polar bears and the other highly adapted organisms cannot move further north, so they may go extinct’
Arctic biodiversity under serious threat from climate change according to new report
Climate change caused by human activities is by far the worst threat to biodiversity in the Arctic
Unique and irreplaceable Arctic wildlife and landscapes are crucially at risk due to global warming caused by human activities according to the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA), a new report prepared by 253 scientists from 15 countries under the auspices of the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), the biodiversity working group of the Arctic Council.
“An entire bio-climatic zone, the high Arctic, may disappear. Polar bears and the other highly adapted organisms cannot move further north, so they may go extinct. We risk losing several species forever,” says Hans Meltofte of Aarhus University, chief scientist of the report.
From the iconic polar bear and elusive narwhal to the tiny Arctic flowers and lichens that paint the tundra in the summer months, the Arctic is home to a diversity of highly adapted animal, plant, fungal and microbial species. All told, there are more than 21,000 species.
Maintaining biodiversity in the Arctic is important for many reasons. For Arctic peoples, biodiversity is a vital part of their material and spiritual existence. Arctic fisheries and tourism have global importance and represent immense economic value. Millions of Arctic birds and mammals that migrate and connect the Arctic to virtually all parts of the globe are also at risk from climate change in the Arctic as well as from development and hunting in temperate and tropical areas. Marine and terrestrial ecosystems such as vast areas of lowland tundra, wetlands, mountains, extensive shallow ocean shelves, millennia-old ice shelves and huge seabird cliffs are characteristic to the Arctic. These are now at stake, according to the report.
“Climate change is by far the worst threat to Arctic biodiversity. Temperatures are expected to increase more in the Arctic compared to the global average, resulting in severe disruptions to Arctic biodiversity some of which are already visible,” warns Meltofte.
A planetary increase of 2 °C, the worldwide agreed upon acceptable limit of warming, is projected to result in vastly more heating in the Arctic with anticipated temperature increases of 2.8-7.8 °C this century. Such dramatic changes will likely result in severe damage to Arctic biodiversity.
Climate change impacts are already visible in several parts of the Arctic. These include northward range expansions of many species, earlier snow melt, earlier sea ice break-up and melting permafrost together with development of new oceanic current patterns.
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  IMAGE: This image shows a sea butterfly (Limacina helicina), a key Arctic sea snail. With the acidification expected in Arctic waters due to the increased concentration of CO2, populations of sea…Click here for more information. |
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It is expected that climate change could shrink Arctic ecosystems on land, as northward moving changes are pressed against the boundary of the Arctic Ocean: the so called “Arctic squeeze”. As a result, Arctic terrestrial ecosystems may disappear in many places, or only survive in alpine or island refuges.
Disappearing sea ice is affecting marine species, changing dynamics in the marine food web and productivities of the sea. Many unique species found only in the Arctic rely on this ice to hunt, rest, breed and/or escape predators.
Other key findings
- Generally speaking, overharvest is no longer a primary threat, although pressures on some populations remain a serious problem.
- A variety of contaminants have bioaccumulated in several Arctic predator species to levels that threaten the health and ability to reproduce of both animals and humans. However, it is not clear if this is affecting entire populations of species.
- Arctic habitats are among the least anthropogenic disturbed on Earth, and huge tracts of almost pristine tundra, mountain, freshwater and marine habitats still exist.
- Regionally, ocean bottom trawling, non-renewable resource development and other intensive forms of land use pose serious challenges to Arctic biodiversity.
- Pollution from oil spills at sites of oil and gas development and from oil transport is a serious local level threat particularly in coastal and marine ecosystems.
- Uptake of CO2 in sea water is more pronounced in the cold Arctic waters than elsewhere, and the resulting acidification of Arctic seas threaten calcifying organisms and maybe even fisheries.
- Shipping and resource development corridors are rapidly expanding and may dramatically increase the rate of introduction of alien species.
- There is an enormous deficit in our knowledge of species richness in many groups of organisms, and monitoring in the Arctic is lagging far behind that in other regions of the world.
- The multitude of changes in Arctic biodiversity – driven by climate and other anthropogenic stressors – will have profound effects on the living conditions of peoples in the Arctic.
Contact:
Chief scientist and executive editor, senior advisor DSc. Hans Meltofte
Department of Bioscience and Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University
Chief Scientist and executive editor of the ABA
Tel. +45 8715 8691
Mobile tel. +45 2988 9278
Email: mel@dmu.dk
All of the “studies” along these lines fall into the same tired old piece of circular logic.
“If all the really horrible things that we’ve convinced ourselves will happen, really DO happen, then it will be really horrible!!!”
Yeah, and if they don’t, then it won’t. This isn’t “science”, it’s wishcasting, an art that once was the domain of medieval soothsayers. I guess they’re back, or maybe they never really left.
Shows what can be produced when funding grants are provided by groups with an agenda. World domination of all natural resources and human behavior is the goal of those who would be in power through “global environmentalism”.
they never question the “science” they base their claims on….just repeat it for fact
Hans: If the current unseasonably cold conditions in the US should become more common — the Polar Bears can always migrate South to the shores of the Great Lakes — Superior is nearly completely frozen over for one of the few times in a century
If the polar bears cannot go north, they can go under…
Now we know what niche telephone directory publishers went into.
Remember the infinite number of monkeys able to type out all the works of Shakespeare? It looks like three of them pictured on the cover came up with this report….
Latitude says:
February 14, 2014 at 7:26 am
they never question the “science” they base their claims on….just repeat it for fact
Lattitude: I coined the word “assumerism” to cover their actions. They assume that a scientifically-valid link has already been shown between CO2 concentration and climate and that all they have to do is enlarge on it, suggest ways to ameliorate this problem that does not exist.
Ian M
If the polar bears are so threatened by rising temperatures, then why have their numbers more than doubled the past 50 years? Secondly, why is it always acidification by CO2, not by sulphuric emissions from Chinese coal fired power plants?
Pseudo-science really pays well these days. It must derive from extrapolation-science.
And these ‘scientists’ work at a ‘university’, paid for by taxpayers!
If all the experts are so clever, how come the world’s in such a mess?
It is a fact of nature that species go extinct. Strangely enough, periods of mass extinction have always heralded a diversity of new groups that evolve to take over the new environments. Without the two mass extinction events of the past we would probably be no further advanced that primitive rat-like mammals.
Not that I expect these apocalyptic predictions to materialise.
A planetary increase of 2 °C, the worldwide agreed upon acceptable limit of warming, is projected to result in vastly more heating in the Arctic with anticipated temperature increases of 2.8-7.8 °C this century. Such dramatic changes will likely result in severe damage to Arctic biodiversity.
◾Shipping and resource development corridors are rapidly expanding and may dramatically increase the rate of introduction of alien species.
Firstly, the Einstein statement that “A scientific consensus can be undone by a single fact!”. e.g. The last four Inter-glacials going back half a million years were warmer than today by………………………between 2 & 4 degrees C! This suggests to me that the Arctic was warmer also back then! We also know that the Arctic & indeed the Antarctic were ice free in the geological past. Where did the 7.8 degrees figure come from, from what I have been able to glean UNIPCC upward figures have been substantially reduced.
Secondly, if alien species are being transported from temperate climes to Arctic climes, suddenly, to all intense & purposes, are they remotely suggesting the these “alien species” will adapt so rapidly as to threaten local species, that have spent thousands of years if not millions, learning to adapt to the second most hostile environment on Earth! I doubt that very, very much!!! More likely the other way around & they wouldn’t be able to adapt so readily, & simply plain old curl up & die! I am not saying that it couldn’t happen, worse things happen at sea, but I find it highly unlikely (95% confidence level – if it’s good enough for them to pluck numbers out of the air, it’s good enough for me!) Happy Valentine’s Day folks, & HAGWE!
… in other words…
HYPE HYPE HYPE from biologists clanging for more research money….
There is a catastrophe looming!!! Fund me, fund me, fund me, they say or doom will befall us all.
Brought to you by ManBearPig. the offsping of the Club of Rome.
http://www.jeremiahproject.com/newworldorder/club-of-rome.html
Is there anything that CO2 doesn’t destroy?
Two recently articles from the Wall Street Journal I haven’t seen covered elsewhere:
The first is about a breakthrough for fusion power:
A Star Is Born: U.S. Scores Fusion-Power Breakthrough
Experimental Reaction Yields Energy, but Sustainability Still Proves Elusive
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304888404579378920296615030
There’s also a video, but you have to sit through some ads — http://live.wsj.com/video/us-scientists-make-fusion-power-breakthrough-and-more/9A617B6B-4313-4AC0-8D24-9ED71DAE8222.html
The second is about the new solar power station in the Mojave killing birds.
The $2.2 Billion Bird-Scorching Solar Project
At California’s Ivanpah Plant, Mirrors Produce Heat and Electricity—And Kill Wildlife
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304703804579379230641329484
This also has a video — http://live.wsj.com/video/wildlife-worries-cause-solar-project-reassessment/CD1F2735-6EE2-4B51-8DB2-7327783BD3B2.html
Should the Arctic suddenly melt, polar bears would likely blend back into their ancestral stock of brown bear & Arctic foxes into swift foxes.
It never ceases to amaze me that those who accept the past positives derived from evolution (which more or less assumes the extinction of some species at some point.) cannot accept the positives of any extinctions NOW for any reason.
It’s almost as if they believe they’re GOD. (or at least Mother Nature)
Latitude says:
February 14, 2014 at 7:26 am
they never question the “science” they base their claims on….just repeat it for fact
Lenin said, “If you repeat a lie often enough, it become truth!”
Hitler said in Mein Kampf, “The mass of the people would more readily believe a big lie, than a small one”.
AGW follows both these apt & highly accurate statements. What they do, particularly the left &
neo-left, is create a scare story, reinforce with as much hype as possible, they then close down debate as far as possible with trite remarks such as “the debate is over, the science is settled”. They then rapid move the scare story onwards to what are we going to do about it. Then they provide the solutions, which they already knew all along because it is part of then long term agenda. It’s very similar to how things operate in the PDRofEU. The EU pay WWF/FoE/Greenpiss & any other tin-pot NGOs to provide reports, upon which they can then base their Socialist agenda, on the grounds of something along the lines of “We don’t want to do this but well, look at the evidence, so we’d better do what the experts recommend!”
They’re doing exactly the same thing in the States. The EPA is the perfect subversion of the democratic process, ruling on “environmental & health endangerment” grounds, all based on flawed science. Using that august body of Presidential appointees, Obama can force through his agenda, right or wrong, virtually unchallenged! m The USA must take its country back, rein in the EPA & reduce its powers.
So how come polar bears live in Chicago zoos? Seems to me these guys are having a hard time finding reasons to care, even should their future come to pass. And why do these yokels believe we will still be emitting CO2 from our cars and power plants a hundred years from now? Carbon emissions are not a future technology, although I worry about what will happen if we succeed in reducing CO2 level to unhealthy levels. Now THAT would be mass extinction – of humans.
wws says “Wishcasting”
Brilliant!!! Perfect description of this nonsense! The University bubble can’t crash fast enough.
outdoorrink says:
February 14, 2014 at 7:48 am
Is there anything that CO2 doesn’t destroy?
Nope, nothing! Fact! sarc off.
The second to the last bullet says it all. ” …an enormous deficit in our knowledge…” and “…monitoring in the Arctic is lagging far behind…” is not only a cry for more funding, but also a tacit admission that most of what the say is speculation based on the speculation of worst case climate models. The fact that 253 scientists are associated with this one group shows how many folks worldwide have their snouts in the trough.
“Climate change is by far the worst threat to Arctic biodiversity. Temperatures are expected to increase more in the Arctic compared to the global average, resulting in severe disruptions to Arctic biodiversity some of which are already visible,” warns Meltofte.
That’s interesting, I would think that the raping of the arctic resources is the one and only threat to arctic biodiversity. Military bases, hydro dams, new roads, oil /gas and what about the rail-lines being proposed by the mining companies; but no, its about CO2 only.. lol. Only God knows what their doing up there with those military bases.
Don’t look over there… no no no, look over sheeple.
outdoorrink says:
February 14, 2014 at 7:48 am
Is there anything that CO2 doesn’t destroy?
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University grants are known to thrive from increased CO2.
Dutch proverb: ‘when the sky falls down everyone gets a blue hat’.