From the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA (USF HEALTH) and the whackadoodle department comes this press release that just screams “robust science”. I mean, just look at that poor butterfly in the photo included in the press release, can’t you tell just how “out of whack” it is?
Changing weather patterns throwing ecosystems out of whack
TAMPA, Fla (Feb. 5, 2018)- Day and night will soon align, marking the start of spring. But the timing of nature’s calendar is starting to fall out of sync.
In a study published in Nature Climate Change, a team of researchers from the University of South Florida in Tampa found that animal species are shifting the timing of their seasonal activities, also known as phenology, at different rates in response to changing seasonal temperatures and precipitation patterns.
“As species’ lifecycles grow out of alignment, it can affect the functioning of ecosystems with potential impacts on human food supplies and diseases,” said lead author Jeremy Cohen, PhD, postdoctoral researcher at the University of South Florida Department of Integrative Biology. “We rely on honeybees to pollinate seasonal crops and migratory birds to return in the spring to eat insects that are crop pests and vectors of human diseases. If the timing of these and other seasonal events are off, ecosystems can malfunction with potentially adverse effects on humans.”
Dr. Cohen and his team found that cold-blooded species and those with small body sizes are breeding or aggregating earlier than warm-blooded or large-bodied species in spring. They come to this conclusion after reviewing thousands of records of phenological shifts dating back to the 1950s.
“Our research elucidates the drivers of phenological responses and the traits of organisms that influence their ability to track changing climates,” said co-author Jason Rohr, PhD, professor at the University of South Florida. “We expect these findings to improve our ability to forecast the locations, systems and species that might be at the greatest risk from climate change and ideally mitigate any adverse effects that these changes might have on the services that ecosystems provide to humans.”
###
The study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0067-3
A global synthesis of animal phenological responses to climate change
Abstract
Shifts in phenology are already resulting in disruptions to the timing of migration and breeding, and asynchronies between interacting species1,2,3,4,5. Recent syntheses have concluded that trophic level1, latitude6 and how phenological responses are measured7 are key to determining the strength of phenological responses to climate change. However, researchers still lack a comprehensive framework that can predict responses to climate change globally and across diverse taxa. Here, we synthesize hundreds of published time series of animal phenology from across the planet to show that temperature primarily drives phenological responses at mid-latitudes, with precipitation becoming important at lower latitudes, probably reflecting factors that drive seasonality in each region. Phylogeny and body size are associated with the strength of phenological shifts, suggesting emerging asynchronies between interacting species that differ in body size, such as hosts and parasites and predators and prey. Finally, although there are many compelling biological explanations for spring phenological delays, some examples of delays are associated with short annual records that are prone to sampling error. Our findings arm biologists with predictions concerning which climatic variables and organismal traits drive phenological shifts.
Figures: (captions are theirs, yes, really.)
I notice Yamal has no study done, that a great place to go if you want to just study one animal and call it a proxy for world climate change. Just ask Mann and Briffa.
Fig. 3: The ability of phenology to track temperature varies among taxonomic classes of animals, ecto- or endothermy, and trophic level.
So in summary, it is a synthesis. “Here, we synthesize hundreds of published time series of animal phenology from across the planet to show that temperature primarily drives phenological responses at mid-latitudes, with precipitation becoming important at lower latitudes, probably reflecting factors that drive seasonality in each region. ”
There’s nothing like synthesized results to “settle the science”. Perhaps the undue worry is synthesized too. Meanwhile, the animals are adapting, just like they always have, while worried scientists go on with their hand-wringing.
And, they reference this horridly messed up paper:
Parmesan, C. & Yohe, G. A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems. Nature 421, 37–42 (2003).
IMHO, Parmesan’s work is garbage, as biologist Jim Steele has told us time and again.
Fabricating Climate Doom – Part 1: Parmesan’s Butterfly Effect
How the American Meteorological Society Justified Publishing Half Truths
Fortunately, Parmesan has fled to France, where she can complain about the schools there.
If species adapt to climate change, we are doomed. On the other hand, if they don’t adapt, we are doomed.
If the human species doesn’t adapt to climate change (as it always has so far) then it is doomed. As to how well other species adapt (or not) will determine their doom, not ours.
And as I have postulated previously, humans, with their need for post natal education, will fare far better than those species with innate knowledge bases that have become obsolete.
Doom can also be expressed as probabilities over time in an apparently Gaussian distribution. The butterfly looks to be about 0.003847 and the blossom 0.08782. Due to bias in nature stock photo selection Doom is often under-represented in papers, because people do not like to look at dead things. Surface Doom readings have always been locally skewed by photographers in this way.
NASA attempted to launch a black ops funded DOOMGRAM (Disaster Oriented Orthographically Mean Gradient Radiative Apocalypse Measurement) satellite last year to secretly map a Global Average Distribution of Doom, to augment networks of the SDD Surface Doom Detector and Doom Balloons. But the mission failed on the launchpad. Which surprised no one.
If the weather patterns don’t change, will the ecosystems get ‘back in whack’?
Absolutely, just like it was in the Garden of Eden. You know…before humans sinned. Everything was completely in whack back then!
I think the proper terminology is ‘unwhack’…as in Mann was acting a bit whacky yesterday, but today he is feeling unwhacked….
How much whacking would be required to get Mann out of this state of unwhack?
How much whack would a Mannwhack have if a Mannwhack could whack Mann?
I’m hearing AC/DC singing ‘Back In Whack!’ in the background.
And “NO!” I haven’t been sampling herbacious whacky tobaccy either!
Yeah, look at that poor out of whack butterfly lighting on… what looks like a Purple Loosestrife plant! Despite it’s colourful appearance, Purple Loosestrife is incredibly invasive and fast-spreading. Why can’t even a small percentage of the CAGW mega-bucks be used to fight invasive species? Oh well, I guess smarter minds than mine have decided.
http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/ais/purpleloosestrife_info
“Purple loosestrife is a very hardy perennial which can rapidly degrade wetlands, diminishing their value for wildlife habitat. Wetlands are the most biologically diverse, productive component of our ecosystem. Hundreds of species of plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, fish and amphibians rely on healthy wetland habitat for their survival.”
I have the perfect solution. If all warmists do not breathe out, it will reduce CO2 emissions dramatically.
They see CC in everything they look at, and I see it in nothing. They want a world like in 1984 the movie.
I don’t know about the ecosystems being out of whack, but “the science” sure seems to be.
Climate and weather stasis is the key to our survival. All things got here because in the past the weather and climate were static.
+100
It always amazes me that the term “climate change”, being redundant terminology, has its core meaning ignored by alarmists. No one should expect the climate to stay the same nor the sea level or anything. It’s called entropy, and we’re one of the only species who actively fights against it.
‘Changing weather patterns throwing ecosystems out of whack’
They’re absolutely correct. Florida should have been hit by a lot more hurricanes in the past 13 years than actually struck the state. They just neglected to say that “out of whack” is actually to our benefit.
Inter-annual variability of temperature in any given region is higher than any likely baseline shift, even assuming the warming models are correct. Plus, the southern hemisphere is empirically warming less than the northern hemisphere. Their conclusions are a mulligan’s stew of bits and pieces.
Just what is “whack” anyway? If ecosystems can figure out what “whack” is, maybe they can order some on Amazon.
I get out of whack
when I run out of crack.
So I’ll publish this hack
for a grant of more jack.
Whack is what yo do to informers, people who don’t pay their gambling losses and/or who are in a different family. Or so I’ve heard.
Universities are great places for mediocrity to hide.
Those who can, do…?
That can change as fast as the dean of the school is replaced. Those who can’t, shouldn’t be teaching either. I saw the Dental College I worked at cleaned of “dead wood” after a change of administration. There were many retirements and resignations when the good-ol-boys-club was put out to pasture. One old prof with a pharmacy licence was even running prostitutes in exchange for scrips and cash, right out of his office. I’m not sure if that was mediocrity or malice, but it all comes down to what the administrators expect of the faculty.
Mediocrity can hide anywhere.
I tend to use the bird migration and the frogs’ night-serenades as signs that the weather will be turning warm soon. This year I don’t expect that until late March. I don’t see any bud growth looking at my fruit trees this morning (at a sunrise temperature of 5F) even after the thaw.
As far as I can tell, nature’s about as out of whack as it was when I started taking notice of it back in the 60’s.
The fuchsias in my garden are usually the first sign of color in the spring, for some reason they flowered at the end of November!
Out here not far from the Pacific my dwarf peach is days away from blooming, but that is partly due to it being covered by a greenhouse in the late fall. Some German chamomile which sits next to a sweet pepper in the same grow bag also survived the winter. This is one of the benefits of being within range of ocean/weather effects.
I’m sure it would be very valuable to South Florida if a whole cadre of Nobel Prize winning scientists were to swoop down on us and straighten this whole mess out. But on the whole, I’d rather they all went to France to help THEM.
Let me guess. They studied small mammals and cold blooded animals in large cities with UHI and studied larger warm blooded animals on farms and in the wild.
It really does amaze me how most so called environmentalists seem to believe that prior to CO2, climate was perfectly static and never changed, even a tiny bit.
Its a problem for the tourist industry more than anything, if the Florida ecosystem gets out of whack whilst the French ecosystem get in-whack, people will go to France rather than the US.
I’ll go to both..as an observer
EO –
And a wine-sampler, too, I hope.
Auto
Here:
“If the timing of these and other seasonal events are off, ecosystems can malfunction with potentially adverse effects on humans.”
and here:
“We expect these findings to improve our ability to forecast the locations, systems and species that might be at the greatest risk from climate change and ideally mitigate any adverse effects that these changes might have on the services that ecosystems provide to humans.”
it clearly states what exactly they are worried about: THEMSELVES.
It’s always only about them. Glad they say so clearly, so I didn’t have to read the whole thing.
I have my own little ecological proxy at play. February is normally the hottest month in New Zealand. January just gone was officially a “hottest ever” based on a selection of weather stations. There has been a warm SST anomaly in the Tasman Sea pushing up LST. Man, has the media been shouting this record from the roof tops. If they cared to look at global SST they would see a huge cold anomaly in the equatorial Eastern Pacific – a indication that we are in a La Nina.
Rats and mice come into buildings in autumn. This normally occurs in mid-march. This year they are invading and hunkering down now, at least 6 weeks early. Animals do have uncanny instincts. Our cats are free to roam. Over and again I see them come into the house some hours before rain. Its not bunkum.
The first week of Feb has been cool. Lets see if the rats have it right.
Regards
Michael
Yes when it comes looking to see what the winter may have in store. Then l also turn to nature to look for a answer. l live in England and what l look at for clues is the timing of the falling of the leaves and what the weather is doing on 27th November.
Because l have noticed that when the leaves are late changing colour and remain on the trees for longer this is often a sign of a cold winter to come. But if they change colour and fall early then this is a sign of a mild winter to come. Over the years l have found this forecast comes good around 7 times out of 10.
Also l’ve found that if the weather on 27th November is cold then the following winter is likely to be cold. But if the temps are average or warm on that day then its likely that the winter will follow suit. Over the years this has been right around 8 times out of 10.
This has been going on for “ever” whenever the climate has changed how do they think all these things have survived and thrived adapt and/or move.
James Bull
Florida Universities have turned into…..don’t waste your money and send your kids there
How do you get a Florida State grad to leave your front porch? Tip him for the pizza.
Ah, yes – the fantasy of equilibrium.
For some reason, there do not seem to be any ill effects in Africa or South America. Probably, there are not enough top class hotels and venues there to make it worthwhile going to those remote places and doing any “Studies”.
Plus a whole shed-load.
+++
Auto
[Yeah, this is probably discriminatory against folks looking for climate effects near a Good Hotel . . . . . . . . .]
I am going to go Nasty On This and call B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T on the authors.
First of all, that is a tiger swallowtail on a stalk of an invasive species known as purple loosestrife, a pest that is crowding out native plants in wetlands in the Midwest and anywhere else it gets loose. I have plenty of my own photos just like that one, maybe more. I also have red admirals on goldenrod and LOTS of beetles of all sizes, plus fireflies, on purple coneflower.
The ignorance shown by Cohen including that pest plant in his paper is appalling. He knows NOTHING about the environment and NOTHING about any of the critters and plants that inhabit it. If he did, he would NOT include that photo. I can’t stand these confounded desk jockeys.
Second, I feed the birds in winter as often as they will show up at my feeding station. I take lots of photographs of them. Anyone who says their migratory patterns are being disrupted by ANYTHING is an ignorant, unobservant idiot who doesn’t spend a second of real time in the wild, making REAL observations. Migration patterns are NOT changing.
The photographs I take are date and time stamped by my cameras. In some cases, there is enough shadow to confirm the angle of the sun in the photo. Anyone who knows anything at all about birds knows that they go by the angle of the sun when they start migration, NOT by temperature or precipitation.
If I have dozens of common field birds like grackles, redwinged blackbirds and brownheaded cowbirds showing up at my feeding station on a March day when the snow is three to four inches deep, it’s NOT because the climate is changing. it’s because they return on time, expecting to find bugs and grubs emerging and it’s too confounded cold and snowy for those food sources to emerge from the ground. These field birds that no one is interested in are the bellwethers, like the sparrows that migrate south and return on time. They come back when the sun tells them to start flying, NOT when there’s some sort of magical climate clock ticking.
Snowy owls may be showing up in my area (two counties so far, the census is rising) but they are young males and females and may be getting pushed out of their territory by older birds, NOT by climate change. Snowy owls inhabit the Arctic. They like cold weather. If it were warmer and climate a factor, they’d be going NORTH, NOT SOUTH.
This pisses me off no end.
These people can just stop pretending they know anything at all. They are nothing but desk jockeys running computers and wasting my tax money and yours on this balderdash.
This whole thing is hogwash.
End of rant.
P.S. Sorry about the naughty words, Anthony. I am SO looking forward to my hikes this spring with a camera. I have some photos I can send you of cowbirds on my front steps.
+10 …nice rant
I was just about to say, nice rant! You beat me to it.
“Anyone who knows anything at all about birds knows that they go by the angle of the sun when they start migration, NOT by temperature or precipitation.”
Never a good idea to generalize so much. Some birds do respond to weather/climate, most obviously waterfowl which will push, or stay, north depending on when ice melts and open water is available. If they get hit with another major cold snap they will retreat and try again. They do this essentially because it is a race to the breeding grounds and the first ones there claim territories – which matters much more now for species like Snow Geese or Canada Geese with populations at all time highs.
Even swallows, most conspicuously Tree Swallows (and Violet-green Swallows in the West) will push north very early and do the same retreat depending on the weather. They eat berries when their usual food – insects – are not available.
Also, it is not so much the angle of the sun as the length of the daylight that does trigger migration in some species, though that pretty much amounts to the same thing.
As for (Brown-headed) cowbirds, their migration patterns have definitely changed because they are now found in many areas where they never were before due to changes we have made in the environment. They were originally associated with moving bison herds on the plains, which explains why they lays their eggs in other birds nests rather than raising their young themselves. Their new abundance and range and this parasitic ‘nesting’ behavior has impacted other bird species which lack the adaptations to deal with them. I always find it sad to see some beautiful little warbler feeding some big ugly aggressive cowbird chick instead of its own young.
Extreme, you mentioning Canada Geese, made me wonder where they bred when their breeding grounds were under 2,000 to 3,000 metres of ice. Did they go into cryogenic hibernation for 90,000 years waiting for the ice to melt? Or perhaps they went extinct and re-evolved from a hardier precursor species as each interglacial developed?
/sarc
Smart Rock – Well, I’m guessing the CAGW researchers would say they just kept flying north as always and died out after laying eggs on the ice. But bird brains are more advanced than their brains, apparently.
In reality they would have just gone as far north as their suitable breeding habitat, which would have shifted southward. That habitat also would have shrunk so populations were smaller, and definitely way smaller than what we have now – which is a major overpopulation. Snow Goose numbers are now so high that they are destroying their nesting habitat on the tundra and, despite long open hunting seasons and giant bag limits there are not enough hunters anymore to even begin to deal with this issue.
That said, the gigantic flocks of them sure are an amazing thing to see!
Extreme, please reread what I wrote.
I said “START migration”. That is very specific, not generalized. Whether they stop for a hiatus along the way south because the cold hasn’t reached my area, for example, and the fields offer a lot of foraging, or continue south because food resources are covered by snow and/or ice is immaterial. Ditto on the way north. If they start back on time and run into cold weather north of me, they will turn right around and come south to my area. IIf the winter is mild, they’ll stick around all winter, finding plenty of feed at feeding stations and harvested fields that haven’t been gleaned. There are Canada gees that stay all winter in the ponds at Lincoln Park in Chicago, IL because people feed them and the ponds seldom freeze.
It is the START that matters. This is based on direct observation, not temperature charts or weather forecasts. Migration, particularly for game birds like geese and ducks, is not a steady pace. They may land in an area like Horcon Marsh where they see masses of other game birds of several species, e.g., snow geese, Canada geese, mergansers, wood ducks, etc., as a way of protecting themselves from hunters. Or they may choose to land in an area where there is open water available near foraging such as cornfields or soybean fields. This is direct observation over many years, OKAY?
I don’t sit at a desk reading charts and graphs and making assumptions based on numbers. I get out in the field, like other wildlife photographers do, and get cold, wet and muddy to get my photos. I’ve seen geese take off in fog so thick they went the wrong way, 30 feet over my head, and yes, I do have photos of that. I have photos of them taking off at first light on a freezing cold October morning and coming in for a landing at sunset in the spring migration.
When I get photos of 22 mated pairs of brownheaded cowbirds on my front steps at my feeding station, pounding down as much bird food as they can get the day after a 6 inch snowfall hit, I am recording FACTS. I am NOT generalizing. If they came back on time, and the weather didn’t cooperate with them, I record it.
I live in a county where the bird census is so important that we’ve set some records here.
I have more than enough hard evidence to back up what I’ve said, as do many, many other wildlife photographers. So do NOT tell me I am generalizing. I am stating facts.
Woohoo!
Way to rant Sara! On topic. Detailed and specific. A wonderful summation.
Thanks, ATheoK
That is not loosestrife. Flower structure is wrong. Looks familiar, but I can’t place it. Compare with the botanical drawing here:
https://awkwardbotany.com/2017/05/24/love-and-hate-the-story-of-purple-loosestrife/
But since you’re so much smarter than others, you’re free to prove me wrong.
You can talk about your experience and impressions all you want, but suggesting they are a better guide to what is happening in general that what has been measured and analyzed in a systematic way for many diverse species on different continents…well, that seems a little arrogant. Especially when you get upset because you think someone has made a mistake, and the mistake is yours. You’re too emotionally involved, you are biased, and it seems that you are not trained in ways to eliminate bias, as scientists are. Observations at a feeder in a single location are not reliable indicators of anything, nor are photos taken opportunistically unless the dataset is very large and includes site the photos were taken.
“Anyone who says their migratory patterns are being disrupted by ANYTHING is an ignorant, unobservant idiot who doesn’t spend a second of real time in the wild, making REAL observations.”
Have you read any of the evidence?
Apparently you don’t know how some researchers get their data. I’m guessing you have never spent every day all day for months outside, rain or shine, setting up experiments, making measurements, noting observations, taking photos, etc.
You are making foolish assumptions about others to support your narrative.
Well, it’s not penstemon. Not lavendula. Not veronica longifolia. Not liatris. Definitely not elsholtzia stauntonii mint. And it is not catmint nepeta. Doesn’t leave you a whole lot of choices. Loosestrife is not always a rosy pinky purple.
Oh, yeah – in regard to bias, the entire blog and this post in particular are about science that has been biased against the truth and against the real world.
Or had that not occurred to you?
Sara, I did reread your post, and the last one, and still think – actually know – that you are over-generalizing.
Things are always more complicated than they appear.
Well, maybe you misunderstood me, Extreme. Cohen and the people who wrote this “”paper” apparently did not do any field work. They took the field research of other people who are out in the mud and the cold, like me and other people who shoot the pictures and/or report the bird census counts and the oddball appearances (e.g., snowy owls count is now up to 150 in this area), and bend the results to suit their own narrative. I do not see anything in Cohen’s article that indicates his familiarity with habitats or the biota that inhabit them and/or migrate to and from those habitats.
He says ‘we synthesize’ in his text. That means that he is using other peoples’ results to draw a possibly false conclusion without ever leaving his office.
Synthesizing results is hogwash and we both know it. Ergo, my rant.
Sara – Thanks for that explanation. Makes sense and I certainly agree with your points. This paper is just another one of so many that are selectively mining data to fit their story. The thing I find so stupid, and prevalent, in this and most ‘studies’ about wildlife is that they always seem to assume that these creatures are dumb robots that cannot learn or adapt. The whole ‘Conservation Biology’ industry is loaded with that (and based on fake history) so it is everywhere these days.
Glad to hear you’re out there in the real world seeing things for yourself.
Sara ==> Your criticism is quite sound — I actually red the original synthesis paper — and, my heavens, if there was ever a case of over-statisicalization — that paper is it. There no telling WHAT whatever they found actually means ….
There is no rule in science that one has to do field work for it to be valid and important research. Syntheses of the data from many studies can be very valuable in the patterns they reveal which are not evident when looking at only one or a few species. If you can identify bias within the methods, go ahead, but you haven’t shown anything in your comments but lack of familiarity with (or approval of) common scientific practice.
“Synthesizing results is hogwash and we both know it.” No, that is hogwash.
Loosestrife – not IDing it based on color but flower structure. “Doesn’t leave you with a whole lot of choices”? That doesn’t make it any more likely to be loosestrife.
Kip Hansen: “I actually red the original synthesis paper — and, my heavens, if there was ever a case of over-statisicalization — that paper is it. There no telling WHAT whatever they found actually means ” This is an excellent reason to leave science to scientists, since they know how to apply and interpret statistics, rather than using whatever Excel stat or graph seems convey the desired message.
kristi – you wrote: “excellent reason to leave science to scientists, since they know how to apply and interpret statistics, rather than using whatever Excel stat or graph seems convey the desired message.”
Are people trained in some field of science still human? Are they still individuals? Are all fields of science, or all institutions of learning, equally rigorous and objective?
So when you say “scientists” it depends entirely on which individual humans in which field you are talking about.
Did you know that there are actual scientists regularly commenting here, and have been since it started?
Did you know that many of the commenters here have spent vast amounts of time and effort studying these issues and discussing them here?
Apparently you don’t. So my advice to you is: before you comment on a topic, at least search this site for related posts and read what has already been discussed, and the levels of those discussions.
Regarding your statement above, do you think statisticians are more or less qualified than scientists who take one or two courses in statistics as part of their degree… like biologists for example? Why don’t they and other scientists bring such experts in to at least check on their stats?
Do you think the 97% Club who you so often mention “know how to apply and interpret statistics… [to} convey the desired message”?
Rant forgiven, but its really more factual that rantual.
Thank you, Anthony. It bugs me when someone claims as his own any results, real or otherwise, based on someone else’s work, without doing any leg work himself.
I hope you found something useful in that stuff I submitted on volcanoes and volcanic emissions. I don’t have a geochemistry background, but I know that this is a significant factor in climate response variables.
Sara writes,
“I am going to go Nasty On This and call B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T on the authors.
First of all, that is a tiger swallowtail on a stalk of an invasive species known as purple loosestrife, a pest that is crowding out native plants in wetlands in the Midwest and anywhere else it gets loose. I have plenty of my own photos just like that one, maybe more. I also have red admirals on goldenrod and LOTS of beetles of all sizes, plus fireflies, on purple coneflower.”
Agree with you about Purple Loosestrife, since it is a proven highly invasive flower. The State of Washington BANNED the sale of even “stable” garden varieties of the plant back in the 1980’s. It is no longer sold in Nurseries, that anyone who bought the stable garden variety in the last year of it being legal for sale, are not allowed to divide the plant to trade or sell with anyone.
I was one of the few who had legal control over a variety of Loosestrife called MORDENS pink, which at the time was considered a stable no seeding plant, which was later found to be false. I was at the time the City gardener for the City of Richland, thus it was planted in a very wet place to fill in the flower bed I created at the old senior center, which is long gone, plant gone with it.
Here is the background of the plant:
Manitoba Purple Loosestrife Project’s Top 10 FAQ
http://www.purpleloosestrife.org/faq/
Data for hummingbird feeder at 40 deg 12′ 10″ N and 85 deg 29′ 36″ W
Year first bird last bird
2013 May 15 Oct 9
2014 May 14 Oct 10
2015 May 10 Oct 9
2016 May 23 Oct 9
2017 May 14 Oct 13
We’ve been putting out oranges to attract Baltimore Orioles for 30+ years. They return to our area (near Madison,WI) on May 5th like clockwork. A few years ago we forgot and didn’t put oranges out until the 8th. Had no Orioles that year.
The mourning doves are chasing my sparrows, cardinals and juncos right out of the feeding station. I am sad.
You are in Mourning………
Gigglesnorrtt!
Another useless “study”. Where are the trends from the 1930’s and 1940’s when it was warmer. This is just as useless as the Arctic Ice starting in 1979. Call him Climate Barber.
Where is New Zealand on that map and why has Moscow had it’s biggest snowfall in a Century?
Figure 2 shows an interesting effect. There is a very high correlation between places that studies have been made, and climate researchers. Somebody should do a study on this. Funding, please…
I should have said “the locations of climate researchers”.
“Abstract
This paper is concerned mainly with the differences between obligate and facultative migration in birds. Obligate migration is considered “hard-wired”, in that the bird seems pre-programmed to leave its breeding area at a certain time each year, and to return at another time. Timing, directions and distances are relatively constant from year to year. This type of migration is thus characterised by its regularity, consistency and predictability. It is found in both short-distance and long-distance migrants, but mainly in the latter. In contrast, facultative migration is considered optional, occurring in response to conditions at the time. Individuals may migrate in some years but not in others, depending on the prevailing food supplies or weather conditions. The timing of autumn migration, and the distance travelled, can be highly variable between individuals and, at the population level, between years. Facultative migration is typical of many partial migrants, but is found in its most extreme form in so-called irruptive migrants. While individual obligate migrants typically return to the same breeding localities year after year, and sometimes also to the same wintering localities, individual irruptive migrants typically breed or winter in widely separated areas in different years, wherever conditions are favourable. It is suggested that these two types of migration are best considered not as distinct, but as lying at opposite ends of a continuum of variation in bird migratory behaviour. Both systems are adaptive; one to conditions in which resource levels vary regularly and predictably in space and time, and the other to conditions in which resource levels vary unpredictably. Suggestions are made for experimental work on captive irruptive species.”
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10336-011-0765-3
Key point: “Both systems are adaptive; one to conditions in which resource levels vary regularly and predictably in space and time, and the other to conditions in which resource levels vary unpredictably.”
The migration patterns of many birds have been changed by human activities… like agricultural waste and bird feeders which allow many species to winter further north (and thus ‘arrive’ earlier). These distributions and migration changes are also changed by the (mostly increasing) abundance of bird species. The APPARENT arrival dates are also influenced by the vastly increased number of birdwatchers looking for them. And other factors.
NONE of these factors are considered in the nonsensical Climate Change stories.
That’s a good point, Extreme.
I remember when there was a theory called evolution that talked about natural changes. Poor Darwin, kicked to the curb by global warming theory.
Exactly. The only believe in evolution when it is convenient.
Are you saying “global warming theory”, like evolutionary theory is just another convenient boondoggle?
@zazove.
No. he is saying AGW theory is creationist thinking at work, as if Eden existed and humans were destroying it right now. Now, they may claim they despise creationists, but the fact is, they hail the Pope for supporting just that creationist stance.
paqyfelyc – That is a very odd hypothesis. And what does the Pope have to do with it? Catholicism isn’t creationist.
Oh, but, Sheri, Trofim Lysenko disputed natural changes and insisted that Lysenkoism was superior to Mendelian genetics. He kicked Darwin to the curb, too!
All that quackery resulted in the starvation deaths of ONLY several million Russians and about 30+ million Chinese.
My attempt at understanding their paper led me to the description == “gobbledygook”.
What they have discovered is that things change — the timing of biological events, the weather, the rainfall, leaf out, leaf fall, first frost, last frost, — all of these change. Their findings of correlations between what’s changing in sync with what is …. well, statistical gobbledygook.
As some ancient Greek once said: Nothing endures but change. Or: Change is the only constant. Or more obtusely: You never cross the same river twice. They said it in Greek of course.
If we could just eliminate time we could stop it.
“Parmesan’s work is garbage, as biologist Jim Steele has told us time and again.”
Oy. Just because someone says another’s work is garbage doesn’t make it so. It’s very easy to criticize someone who isn’t around to argue their point. That becomes a very convenient and extremely common strategy when one is trying to convince the public of something.
Indeed unsupported criticisms are easy. Likewise unsupported rebuttals are easy.
However my criticisms are totally backed by strong evidence, so you must now provide your evidence that my criticisms of Parmesan are not justified.
Start by reading http://landscapesandcycles.net/American_Meterological_Society_half-truth.html
Then tell us why the harsh criticisms of Parmesan’s bunk “science” is not justified!
Hello Jim, nice to see a response from the man himself.
I read your argument and the letter you sent and the responses. Then I went to Parmesan’s ariticle to see what your beef was about. I’m afraid I find for Parmesan. She says “set of populations,” not all populations. She is discussing what happens in this set. That is interesting in itself, independently of the information about the other populations; whether they were near or far, thriving or not doesn’t alter the fact that the butterflies in some habitats were vulnerable to mass die-off due to weather/climate. Not terribly interesting in itself, but because this is a review and not the original paper there doesn’t need to be any mention of the other set of populations. That’s something for the original paper to discuss; it can’t be adequately addressed in the review without taking an inordinate amount of space.
I do, though, think “carving a path to extinction in a whole set of populations” is hyperbole. It’s hard to completely dehumanize one’s technical writing, but that’s a little much. At least it could have said, “extirpation.”. There is certainly nothing here worthy of retraction, in my opinion, in fact that seems a bit odd. You are talking about the review, right?.
Anyway, that’s my honest opinion. I’m an ecologist and though I don’t do research anymore I’m no stranger to the literature, methods and, most important, the methodology of science like this – but neither would you be. Is it all about the climate issue?
From your website:
” It became clear that the Sierra Nevada were not overheating despite publications blaming wildlife extinctions on global warming. The most important factors affecting local climate change were the cycles of El Nino and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation as well as landscape changes that had greatly altered the regional microclimates. Believing the politics of global warming have been misguiding conservation efforts,…. “.
Huh. I don’t see how you got from the first bit to the last sentence. No one says the whole planet will get warmer. It could well be that the most important factors in LOCAL “climate change” are natural cycles -.but that that’s not climate change. Landscape changes could alter the local climate, and they have altered global climate. None of this, though, contradicts AGW theory.
“There’s nothing like synthesized results to “settle the science”.”
This should read: more solid research showing many species are probably being affected by AGW – but conspicuously not, a small number of English speaking homo sapiens.
Species are just labels put on living beings (or even dead beings, for that matter. the last T. Rex was long dead before someone cared to name the specie). They are unaffected by climate.
Living being are affected by weather, not climate, either.
“many species are probably being affected by AGW” is just nonsense.
LOL
Could someone please quantify this ‘Whack’ – preferably using known SI-units. Thanks.
“published in Nature Climate Change”
Says it all. You NEED trash bins, and this journal is just that.
It is very surprising and delightful that such irresponsible discourse may be created on the basis of our present knowledge. During history, perhaps, this was not the case when outdated views resisted so controversial despite the facts. Maybe this is the survival of the Middle Ages.
Insect, fish and many invertebrates are continually changing their phenology. That is how insects and marine fish have been around for so long. Rothschild hypothesized marine fishes’ reproductive strategy was to continually “taste” the environment. Billfish and Tunas spawn over a fairly broad area, beginning early in the spring and spawning several times before the end of their spawning season usually in late summer and early fall some months later. Insects have similar strategies. It allows both groups to adapt to continually changing environmental conditions, which have in their long history included more than a few dramatic climate changes. I had a real problem with their graph b and c in the first set of graphs. Those graphs tell me nothing. A shotgun blast would be just as meaningful.