Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Royal Society has published a study which claims that global warming will unleash deadly swarms of giant arctic mosquitoes.
According to the Royal Society;
Abstract
Climate change is altering environmental temperature, a factor that influences ectothermic organisms by controlling rates of physiological processes. Demographic effects of warming, however, are determined by the expression of these physiological effects through predator–prey and other species interactions. Using field observations and controlled experiments, we measured how increasing temperatures in the Arctic affected development rates and mortality rates (from predation) of immature Arctic mosquitoes in western Greenland. We then developed and parametrized a demographic model to evaluate how temperature affects survival of mosquitoes from the immature to the adult stage. Our studies showed that warming increased development rate of immature mosquitoes (Q10 = 2.8) but also increased daily mortality from increased predation rates by a dytiscid beetle (Q10 = 1.2–1.5). Despite increased daily mortality, the model indicated that faster development and fewer days exposed to predators resulted in an increased probability of mosquito survival to the adult stage. Warming also advanced mosquito phenology, bringing mosquitoes into phenological synchrony with caribou. Increases in biting pests will have negative consequences for caribou and their role as a subsistence resource for local communities. Generalizable frameworks that account for multiple effects of temperature are needed to understand how climate change impacts coupled human–natural systems.
Read more: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1815/20151549
Just one question – if a few degrees of global warming has the potential to turn Arctic mosquitoes into a B-grade horror movie nightmare, why isn’t this already happening in the slightly warmer Subarctic?
Are these the mosquitos that are about the size of a B-36 and make a similar sound?
Nah,
B29
Deadly mosquitos? Check. Lyme disease? Covered. Rampant pestilence and plague? Gotcha. Welcome to CDC’s “Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) Framework”
http://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/brace.htm
This is the kind of thing I’d expect to hear from Billy Sol Hardon, deacon of the first church of the gooey death and discount house of worship, Del Rio, Texas. O, say hallelujah; Can I get a witness? And don’t you know there will be famine and pestilence across the land lest you believe, praise gaia, in the one and I say verily, praise all’a y’all the consensus for there be the true path to glory. Listen to me, sinners – you can’t feel good until you’ve given til it hurts and don’t you know, hear me now, digging deep is the road to salvation; give it up for gaia. Paris beckons – be ready, sinners! Turn out your pockets for the common good.
Think I’ll jest nullius in verba,
… nor no model’s neither.
Quick someone grab the shovels, we can dig Wes Craven up while he’s still warm. Only he could do justice to this senario of giant artic mosquitos sucking you dry in one shot. Maybe we could dress them like politicians, hmmmmm.
The really funny part of the “study” is this tidbit:
The researchers focused their study on Western Greenland and were expecting to find a decrease in the number of Arctic mosquitoes, which would have triggered conservation efforts, according to Lauren Culler, lead author of the study and postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth College’s Dickey Center Institute of Arctic Studies.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/0916/Why-climate-change-means-more-huge-mosquito-swarms-in-the-Arctic
You see the compelling logic of global warming, they expected to find a decrease in mosquitoes, which would prove global warming, but they didn’t find one. They found an increase in mosquitoes, which proves global warming.
Ain’t global warming wonderful.
Three simple letters can solve the non issue and alleviate the alarmist’s hysteria: DDT.
Global warming by few degrees may take 50 to 100 years, but only 4°C warm oceans could cool the world into ice age conditions within one season or year.