From the “you really should check the data before you invoke the universal boogeyman” department:
‘Very bad tick year’ expected for Alabama in 2017, and climate change a factor
2017 could be a record year for ticks and tick-borne illnesses according to one researcher who studies the arachnids in Alabama. “I would say this is going to be a very bad tick year because it was a very mild winter,” said Tim Sellati, chair of Southern Research’s Infectious Diseases Department.
In addition, Sellati said a warming climate has let certain species of ticks expand their range and those changes are reflected in tick surveys in Alabama and other parts of the United States. “The winters are warmer and the ticks recognize this, they sense this change in their environment,”
Source: https://goo.gl/sgrL0P
Uh, no. It has not warmed in Alabama in the last century according to NOAA’s own data. In fact the average temperature has COOLED since 1895:
The minimum temperature trend essentially flat:
And if “ticks recognize this, they sense this change in their environment,” according to Tim Sellati, chair of Southern Research’s Infectious Diseases Department, you’d think they would sense that Alabama is getting cooler, especially the daytime high temperatures:
Here’s the problem:
Tim Sellati is conflating weather with climate. Weather patterns typically span days to weeks, while climate is defined as a 30 year interval according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO):
Climate, sometimes understood as the “average weather,” is defined as the measurement of the mean and variability of relevant quantities of certain variables (such as temperature, precipitation or wind) over a period of time, ranging from months to thousands or millions of years.
The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.
And here’s where Sellati goes really really wrong, note the single end data point, December through February, the “winter” months for Alabama, there’s a nice warm spike there, though not as warm as the spike of 1932. There’s also an ever so slight, though statistically insignificant warming trend since 1895. Note in the legend, NOAA reports that as 0.0F per decade:
Source:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/1/0/tavg/3/2/1895-2017?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1901&lastbaseyear=2000&trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1895&lasttrendyear=2017
That one warm point at the end, that’s due to a weather pattern my friends. It’s called El Niño, of which there was a very large one recently that affected Alabama’s winter temperatures and precipitation.
Sellati might be a tick expert, but to quote one of the favorite lines of climate skeptic detractors: he’s not a climate scientist. While the data shows winter was warmer in Alabama, it isn’t part of a long-term trend and in fact, there were three other periods in 1932, 1950, and 1957 that were warmer than this most recent winter.
Seems a correction/retraction is in order.
Note: about 5 mins after publication, the title was changed to correct a misspelling.
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Ticks from across the overheated US have been flocking to Alabama to escape the heat. In fact, Alabama’s been on the up-tick for decades now.
+0.5
My oh my! What a site this WUWT. The education surpasses any other source. Tick talk and now I’m a passible expert in ticks in Alabama (and half the, USA).
http://www.dailyherald.com/storyimage/DA/20120711/news/707119803/AR/0/AR-707119803.jpg
In my experience, tics multiply in uncut meadows and grasses. Where grass is cut regularly tics are rare.
That’s because the intermediate nymoh stage typically feeds on white footed mice (field mice) and those don’t inhabit mowed grasslands. No food, no shelter, so no mice, so no ticks.
ristvan April 11, 2017 at 12:57 pm
That’s because the intermediate nymoh stage typically feeds on white footed mice (field mice) and those don’t inhabit mowed grasslands. No food, no shelter, so no mice, so no ticks.
The author appears to agree with you, the sentence that was omitted from the original report said:
“The warm, wet winter and spring have created conditions for dense undergrowth in forests, which allows ticks to thrive.”
They blew it, should’a blamed it n the CO2 itself, causing more growth . .
This is an excellent way to convince one’s family that mowing the lawn is VERY IMPORTANT WORK.
Are we holding the deer population in Alabama flat for this analysis?
Not that I know of, however a lot of deer are getting flat when they run out in front of cars and trucks.
Climate is not the only thing this article’s author and cited tick ‘expert’ got wrong. Ticks, especially deer ticks, are relatively impervious to prolonged cold. We have them all over Wisconsin thanks to the large deer population. The only difference is they are inactive (not feeding) in winter unless the temperature is above freezing. Adults start feeding in November, and finish if necessary in the spring. The only ‘climate control’ is prolonged summer drought, because the nymph stage (feeding typically on mice) cannot control body water content after feeding and during summer molt to adult. In low humidity dry conditions they dissicate and die. Never reach adult stage to feed again and lay eggs, so two yars after a drought there is a marked reduction in adults. Just researched this at U. Wisconsin and U. Rhode Island entomology sites.
Whole piece is alarmist unscientific drivel.
In low humidity dry conditions they dissicate and die.
We now live in such an area, and it is also cold in winter. The very eastern slope of the Cascade Mountains of Central Washington.
There are fewer ticks here than in any other place we have lived.
“so two years after a drought there is a marked reduction in adults.”
In 2010 we had one of the hottest summers around here in my memory and the ticks just disappeared. It had been very dry for the preceding few years also, before the extreme heat of 2010 hit.
It seems to me that in the six years since that time there is a noticable reduction in tick numbers around here even still. I get very few on me, and my dogs hardly ever get any, although they are restricted to my fenced-in yard and don’t wander through the brush.
I suppose if you have extreme heat that kills off the population of ticks, it takes them a while to build their numbers back up. Lucky me! 🙂
Impressive. Finley worded rebuttal. But…go Gophers!
Lyme Borreliosis is called Kumlinge disease in the Northern Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumlinge#/media/File:Kumlinge.sijainti.suomi.2008.svg
Although it is perhaps more common nowadays than during Weichselian glaciation, I object to any plans favouring a return to the latter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weichselian_glaciation
A couple things wrong with this analysis, allow me to Mann up and fix it for you. First, you need to start your temperature trend data at 1965, that’s the time period that’s relevant because that will show a warming trend. You also need to Karlize your data; simply take all the data and homogenize it to Birmingham, that should make the data appropriate for official government use.
This is nothing. I have it on good authority that climate change will cause polar bears to fall from the sky. I kid you not.
bearnados
Actually they (the Polar Bears) are riding ice bergs to Newfoundland and blocking the shipping lanes – due to global warming and calving of icebergs off Greenland – at least according to the media today. LOL
http://globalnews.ca/video/3372627/icebergs-causing-havoc-in-atlantic-shipping-lanes
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/polar-bear-shot-catalina-1.4063378
And from last year:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/polar-bear-shot-by-newfoundland-rcmp-on-fogo-island-1.2884093
Global Warning is causing Polar Bears to migrate south …
/sarc off
last month in Newfoundland:
http://imgur.com/78yl7mk
(why do you think they call it preying?)
No, deer ticks are so common because deer are so common because hunting is now so politically-incorrect. The deer ticks have become increasingly common here in the mid-Appalachians for the same reasons. There are consequences for Bambi increasing its numbers.
PETA: “People Eating Tasty Animals.”
Yes. In my farm’s part of Wisconsin deer hunting went from buck only my first hunt year 1983, to two deer (one buck, one doe) mid 1990s to now mandatory doe first unless you have an unused carryover buck tag from last year. Minimum two tags. Plus for every deer checked you automatically get another deer tag, two if you ask, rule still doe before buck.
Wisc. DNR begs you to harvest them. Any meat you don’t want the state will take and process for school lunch and prison meal programs. State Goal is to harvest >800,000 deer per year. Last year with poor weather only made 650,000. Herd estimated at ~1.8-2 million, and the target herd is under 1.5 million. Best hunt we had was 7 hunters, 11 deer in three days. On just 280 acres.
Here in Virginia it is almost identical…but the population is still expanding at an impressive rate. Car, deer mishaps have doubled in ten years. And deer sausage is awesome.
Thanks for an unexpected gem.
“Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.”
This always gets me too. Using the word you are attempting to define in the definition.
No wonder I think this whole thing is a bleeping joke.
Andrew
Based on the fact that ticks are so much worse in warmer regions of the USA, and tick-borne diseases were first identified in warm regions, this makes perfect sense.
Lyme disease:
https://goo.gl/maps/P2fd77aW45E2
(Lyme, CT)
Rocky Mountain Spotted fever:
https://goo.gl/maps/rfgJSXYeaCs
(Idaho and Montana)
Oh, wait…
The World Met Org. has a 30yr period for climate. Everyone with even a passing acquaintance with the subject knows the complete cycle is 60yrs. They don’t go for this for two reasons : first they didn’t acknowledge that there was natural variation and second, they needed a short period of time for alarmist purposes. Waiting 60yrs for a definitive signal left things up in the air.
You’d think having ridden the cycle down and clarioned the arrival of the ice age because of man’s activities and then riding the 30yr rebound up to scare us with a firey future because of ourselves, that the truth would soon be out. Karlization of the Pause gave a few years respite but, the other half of the cycle down is going to kick them in the a55es. Another adjuster taking it for the team and retiring won’t work too well this time.
Terrific observation. For sure for the Arctic. Probably for GAST. Supported by AR4 WG1 SPM figure 8.2.
W Briggs said it all a few years ago:
“Incidentally, isn’t it curious that if the organism sticks, pricks, poisons, pesters, wreaks havoc, or carries diseases, scientists claim it will thrive in the coming climate. But if it’s gentle, delicious, cute, cuddly, or photogenic, the animal will whither in that same climate. What a coincidence!”
I was under the impression that dog tick populations might decline in AL, Fl and TX IF summer temperatures increased….. ” The ADTSIM results indicate that with the proposed climatic change scenarios at certain southern locations (Jacksonville, FL, and San Antonio, TX) American Dog Tick populations will disappear owing to adverse effects of high temperatures and low humidity, while at certain northern locations (Missoula, MT, North Bay, Ont., and Halifax, N.S.) populations will increase because of warming with adequate moisture. For most other U. S. locations, tick densities either declined moderately or remained the same with various weather scenarios.” http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/docs/001-365/001-365.html
The tick population is increasing because of its positive correlation with SEC football revenues. We need a football tax.
Northern Wisconsin story:
A friend of mine used to visit a man and his family that grew up in the woods.
The man was well known as someone that could get you anything you wanted, be it bear, raccoon (one of which drowned one of his dogs), bobcat, deer, you get the idea ?
Anyway, there was a certain bartender at one of the multitude of bars that necessitated an appearance during his reconnoitering that he didn’t like (I’m sure he had his reasons, he was that type of guy).
He (as I was told) had a tick or two in some kind of container, that he would throw onto said bartender.
He’s gone now, and the world is a lesser place.
That non-story was non-helpful; incomprehensible blither.