Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new study claims that bird numbers are plummeting in the Mojave Desert region because of climate change. This appears to be occurring despite efforts by local authorities in the region to reduce CO2 emissions by filling the desert with wind turbines and solar concentrators.
Study: Climate change possible cause of bird species decline
Aug. 19, 2018
…
The study shows almost a third of species are less common and widespread now than they once were throughout the region.
The study’s authors, Steven Beissinger and Kelly Iknayan, point to less hospitable conditions in the Mojave Desert as the probable cause.
“California deserts have already experienced quite a bit of drying and warming because of climate change, and this might be enough to push birds over the edge,” said Iknayan, who conducted the research for her doctoral thesis at UC Berkeley. “It seems like we are losing part of the desert ecosystem.”
“The Mojave Desert is now nearly half empty of birds,” said Beissinger, a UC Berkeley professor of environmental science, policy and management. “This appears to be a new baseline, and we don’t know if it’s stable or if it will continue to decline.”
…
“Studies elsewhere have found that climate change typically makes places unfavorable for some birds but opens the door for others to come in,” Iknayan said. “In the desert, we are not seeing increases in any of our species except for the common raven. There are a lack of climate change winners in the system.”
Read more: https://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Study-Climate-change-possible-cause-of-bird-13167195.php
The abstract of the study;
Collapse of a desert bird community over the past century driven by climate change
Kelly J. Iknayan and Steven R. Beissinger
PNAS August 6, 2018Climate change has caused deserts, already defined by climatic extremes, to warm and dry more rapidly than other ecoregions in the contiguous United States over the last 50 years. Desert birds persist near the edge of their physiological limits, and climate change could cause lethal dehydration and hyperthermia, leading to decline or extirpation of some species. We evaluated how desert birds have responded to climate and habitat change by resurveying historic sites throughout the Mojave Desert that were originally surveyed for avian diversity during the early 20th century by Joseph Grinnell and colleagues. We found strong evidence of an avian community in collapse. Sites lost on average 43% of their species, and occupancy probability declined significantly for 39 of 135 breeding birds. The common raven was the only native species to substantially increase across survey sites. Climate change, particularly decline in precipitation, was the most important driver of site-level persistence, while habitat change had a secondary influence. Habitat preference and diet were the two most important species traits associated with occupancy change. The presence of surface water reduced the loss of site-level richness, creating refugia. The collapse of the avian community over the past century may indicate a larger imbalance in the Mojave and provide an early warning of future ecosystem disintegration, given climate models unanimously predict an increasingly dry and hot future.
Read more: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/31/1805123115
Interesting that a highly intelligent, opportunistic scavenger species like the common raven is doing well, in a region littered with renewable power installations.
Update (EW): Added the Bird vs Wind Turbine video
… no, not the worlds largest bug zapper/bird fryer array. Its “global warming” yeah!
Ravens are not a desert species. Their increasing numbers mean the Mojave is becoming greener not hôtter or dryer.
The researchers failed to ask the most interesting and obvious question. How can ravens live in a desert. Did the ravens change or did the desert change.
Wrong. https://www.desertmuseum.org/books/nhsd_raven.php
No, CO2 changed from a guess of ~280ppm/v before the industrial revolution to an actual measure of 410ppm/v in 2018. See the science trick there?
No, explain it.
Explain how an estimate was replaced with a measure?
Yes, how? And also why you call it a “science trick”. Are you saying someone is being tricky as in deceptive?
You don’t know the difference between an estimate and a measure? Dictionary.com may help.
With regards to my “science trick”, was tongue in cheek. I was thinking of Phil Jones and his comment about Mike’s (Mann) “nature trick”.
The desert is full of bird corpses due to solar and wind.
Well actually the common raven is quite diverse, ranging from the high Arctic to the desert southwest. These surveys were all conducted from May-August when the common raven typically would have shifted north though they are not truly migratory.
So unless ravens eat CO2 or climate change itself, there has to be an explanation for why there are more there now than the earlier surveys. These desert birds are almost completely dependent on their food as a source of water so their “conclusion” is contradictory to the data. The way to explain this using their data is that it is cooler/wetter during the survey summers than the early surveys, or there is simply more food (neither quite fit the narrative).
After looking at the methodology, I’ll go with Occam’s Razor, the statistically adjusted data based on models of the recent surveys are junk. There are just as many ravens and other bird species in the extant wild areas of the Mojave now than there were 100 years ago.
how do you like your birds? chopped and baked.
Proof that academics will prostitute themselves for a buck. Any intelligent human being would see immediately that the bird choppers and fryers are most likely the reason. What a bunch of illegitimate pretend scientists. (Of course, the wind and solar people refused a study of before and after populations, I’m sure, because their lies would be exposed.)
Any intelligent person would go with a physical, verified cause instead of a pretend cause shown by an imaginary cause modeled on a computer. What does that tell you?
“Any intelligent human being would see immediately that the bird choppers and fryers are most likely the reason”
Intelligent humans can be fooled Sheri, where are the bodies? 43% whole species have completely disappeared. You can bet some of the other remnant species aren’t doing that well either (perhaps except the ravens). That is a large number of birds, many of them nowhere near these facilities. Many of them ground-dwelling, in no danger of flying into something. Gone.
There should be photos of piles of dead birds, there aren’t.
“most likely the reason”… unless you spend a few minutes thinking it through, crunching some numbers and reading some of the research paper. Then you realise it is baloney.
I addressed that before—on private land, the bodies can be disposed of. Many, many installations are off limits to citizens, so how hard is it to dispose of bodies????
I realize you are baloney, yes. I have researched for over a decade and live among these horrid monstrosities that you love to destroy the environment with (but rarely, if ever, actually live among). Unlike you, I actually care about the planet and what greedy, bad people are doing to it under a near religious belief in a myth. Hatred of the planet is widespread today, in the name of greed and control. You have joined the hate side.
“how hard is it to dispose of bodies????”
But where are photos? There should be millions of them. Bodies in little piles, bodies in little holes too I suppose if they’re being disposed of. Photos of mass killings – burnt feathers flying everywhere. You have seen them right?
You really have no contact with reality. Have you ever seen a wind plant???? Fences all around, off limits to people other than the owners?
Have you ever heard of scavengers? It appears you have not. I had a fawn deer die in my yard one year and it was dragged off overnight. Out of a fenced yard.
I suppose if one cared in the least about climate change and wind worshipper’s delusions, one could invest in a drone with a camera, until run off the installation by a shotgun toting wind defender, but I hate guns pointed at me, so I am not volunteering. Even then, I suspect you would say I faked the pictures, so why bother? You have a religious faith in these things and facts are irrelevant.
So you have no evidence to support your assertion. Thanks for clearing that up.
So you have been reading the Troll Manual™ I see used in the comment sections on political news sites. How quaint. I always assumed if you sank to that level, you had zero cognitive skills.
ever hear of col. sanders?
🙂
There are several of dead raptors and one or two odd videos of actual strikes, but there seems to be a lack of any hard evidence for the wiping out of the purported thousands.
I’m not suggesting you take the photos I’m just asking if you’ve seen any?
https://www.google.com/search?q=windmill+kill+birds&newwindow=1&client=opera&hs=l2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwibuYjJtP7cAhUPC6wKHWc-DPAQ_AUICygC&biw=1600&bih=790#imgrc=_
Yeah thats what i googled too, you only see about 20 dead birds out of dozens of photos.
Again, for those with faith, no evidence of wrong will ever be enough.
“evidence of wrong”
Are talking about the photos of 20 dead birds?
You seem so convinced, but my farm isn’t near a turbine and 20 dead birds is not evidence of thousands. Do you have any other evidence?
No evidence is ever enough to shake your faith.
You don’t really have any do you?
You really are that dumb, aren’t you?
(Note: I read the Troll Manual™ too and am very familiar with the techniques used by those who advocate for things they do not understand. Asking the same questions over and over just shows one’s lack of intelligence, irregardless of what the manual says.)
You are the one going on faith. You state things, then provide zero evidence to support it.
Again, Troll Manual™ 101. A silly technique showcasing one’s ignorance while thinking they appear intelligent. I provide evidence. You do not.
These types of people have spent very little time in nature. They typically live in concrete jungles and read about how nature is being destroyed from their armchair.
Right, Robert. I grew up in the PNW, hundreds of hikes and backpacking trips, both sea kayaking and whitewater kayaking, as well as winter sports. 10 years of competitive sailing, both lake and saltwater.
And yet you never really saw nature, it seems.
Lol.. Sheri!
“I could give you the evidence to to support my claims if i wanted to. I just don’t want to!”
Even worse – a pious, born-again John Denver. All recreation.
they’re gonna tax the sand?
Ravens are smart and capable of manipulating the climate policy debate. /sarc
Do they have any actual studies that show that the climate of the desert has changed? Or is it just that models say the deserts should have changed, therefore they did.
my grandchildren won’t know what sand is…
My guess is models. You know haw tough data is to get and how uncooperative it can be.
This is typical Art major pseudoscience biology. Typical junk statistics include:
“Coefficients of community-level persistence probability from a dynamic multispecies occupancy model”
“Relationship of climate change, recent weather, and habitat change to community-level persistence probability with 95% credible intervals”
“Historic and modern species occupancy probabilities and site richness for the Mojave avian community over the past century.”
Actual quantitative data and scientific analyses: NA.
43%
So what?????
Junk science on steroids:
“Impact of imperfect detection on findings
Differences in detectability over time can have a major
confounding effect on revisitation studies of species
occurrence. In this study, detectability of bird species
substantially increased over a century coincident with
changes in survey methodology and dissemination of
field-based ornithological knowledge. Analyses accounting
for detectability demonstrated a decrease in species
richness, while those that did not indicated an increase in
richness over time. While the difference in detectability
observed over time in this study may be substantial due
to the nature of historical survey data, there is strong
evidence that surveyors benefit from experience (Sauer et
al. 1994) and are biased by previous species encounters
at a site (Riddle et al. 2010). Consequently, even surveys
conducted by the same observer five or 10 years apart
are not immune from temporal changes in detectability.
For these reasons, studies of community properties
should account for imperfect detection and allow
detection probabilities to vary by species, survey, and
over time. To date, no other studies of climate change
impacts on species richness have done so. Trends from
observed data showing richness declines, even when
nonparametric richness estimators are used (Moritz et
al. 2008), may be more severe than previously estimated.
Additionally, observed richness increases may obscure
true decreases. Hierarchical community occupancy
models (Dorazio and Royle 2005, Dorazio et al. 2006)
provide a strong, flexible framework within which to
estimate the processes which obscure true occupancy.
Continuing to advance methods of accounting for
detectability will be critical for conservation as we use
ever more diverse baseline sources of data to understand
temporal changes in the natural world.”
In other words, they are saying that the actual scientists surveying in the early 20th century were dumb and didn’t know how to see a bird or count, and we’re super smart now, so we need to take the actual data and put it into a model to adjust it to what it really should be. Climate science!
For the benefit of Chris and Ryan, who apparently have zero understanding of wildlife, “where are the corpses” answer:
Now, squimish people should stop reading here (assuming squimish people read WUWT).
True stories from prairie dog shooting:
You can shoot a hundred or more prairie dogs, return the next day and there are generally less than 5 bodies to be found, if that many. Prairie dogs are cannibals and drag the dead into the burrow. Then there are the hawks that sit back and wait for the shooting to stop (I have photos of this). They wait until you move back far enough for them to be comfortable, then move in to feed.
Now, using Chris and Ryan’s logic, my answer to those who object to prairie dog shooting is “Where are the bodies?” According to Chris and Ryan’s logic, the shooting never occurred because there are no dead bodies.
Hmmm. Wasn’t it concern over bird-populations that led to the DDT ban?
And the death toll there was…
Check this out:
Why not just use the Audubon Society annual bird count performed every December in that region. Graph that vs. year over the last 40 years and indicate on the graph when construction of the solar electric generation was completed?
Oh, I forgot. This study was to support the summer camping trip for researchers Kelly J. Iknayan and Steven R. Beissinger at federal grant money expense.
Of course bird numbers are decreasing because of “Global Warming”.
Without caGW, there’d be no need to build all those bird swatters and fryers.
(Maybe Colonel Sanders is behind it?)
We must keep Nature from changing whatever the cost!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Damn! I lost my sarc tag again.)
Desert birds are living on the edge so it doesn’t take much flight feather scorching or eye impairment from the solar plant mirror arrays to put them over the edge. The damn installations look like WATER from far away because, other than a tar pit, a body of water is the only natural thing that reflects blue sky. What could look more inviting to a desert bird than spotting a lake only 10 miles away?
The birds getting scorched to the point of being forced down near the array are a minor number compared to those that stayed closer to the perimeter and flew away seemingly unaffected.
Those are likely a much larger number that were compromised and destined to die maybe days later and miles from the facility from exhaustion or inability to navigate/forage due to retinal damage.
They should fly drones at the same speed as a bird through the light field at locations of various amounts of light concentration equipped with sensors and some feathers to examine what happens to them microscopically – feathers have interlocking hooks (barbules) that must be able to re-engage each other if separated. These are tiny filaments that wouldn’t require much heat to distort and not work anymore. The bird might seem just fine but after several days there would be more and more rips that won’t reconnect requiring more and more effort to fly leading to exhaustion.
The problems that can be caused by vision impairment don’t need explanation. Their eyesight has to be perfect to spot food, the slightest compromise probably means starvation.
(I surmised that this decline could happen two years ago – https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/08/03/usgs-releases-bird-and-insect-incineration-footage-from-ivanpah-solar-electric-facility/#comment-1833188 ) I just don’t trust big green to care about the birds let alone admit they are responsible so I’m not surprised that they would automatically blame warming for the population decline. If these ugly monstrosities are causing that decline they have to be torn DOWN!
Considering there hasn’t been much in the way of climate change at all in the USA, away from the big cities, it seem to me it is bogus of the study to immediately blame the problem on climate change. There is likely to be a wide range of possible causes e.g pesticides, aquifer drawdown due to water extraction, overgrazing and introduced or feral species.
I see too that the editor was one Paul R Ehrlich.