Essay by Eric Worrall
A natural adaption to an Australian ecological disaster exposes these claims of fragile food webs as nonsense.
Computer modelling predicts climate change causing cascading animal ‘co-extinctions’
By Eugene Boisvert and Anisha Pillarisetty
Computer modelling has shown the variety of vertebrate animal species found in locations across the globe could be cut by 27 per cent by the end of the century.
Key points:
- Models of the Earth were created populated by animal species and food webs
- Extinctions caused by other extinctions were also considered in the study
- One of the researchers involved says it shows biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation go together
The simulation conducted on one of Europe’s most powerful supercomputers also found that one extinction caused a cascade of extinctions that have been coined “co-extinctions”.
The tool found that under the worst climate change prediction, 34 per cent more species would become extinct than would be predicted when not considering co-extinctions.
…
To produce the study, the scientists created synthetic Earths complete with virtual species and more than 15,000 food webs to predict the interconnected fate of species.
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-17/computer-modelling-shows-cascading-animal-coextinctions/101777762
The abstract of the study;
Coextinctions dominate future vertebrate losses from climate and land use change
GIOVANNI STRONA AND COREY J. A. BRADSHAW
SCIENCE ADVANCES
16 Dec 2022
Vol 8, Issue 50Abstract
Although theory identifies coextinctions as a main driver of biodiversity loss, their role at the planetary scale has yet to be estimated. We subjected a global model of interconnected terrestrial vertebrate food webs to future (2020–2100) climate and land-use changes. We predict a 17.6% (± 0.16% SE) average reduction of local vertebrate diversity globally by 2100, with coextinctions increasing the effect of primary extinctions by 184.2% (± 10.9% SE) on average under an intermediate emissions scenario. Communities will lose up to a half of ecological interactions, thus reducing trophic complexity, network connectance, and community resilience. The model reveals that the extreme toll of global change for vertebrate diversity might be of secondary importance compared to the damages to ecological network structure.
Read more: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn4345
The authors of the study admitted that gathering real world data is difficult, so they decided to create their own data.
…
Apart from the obvious modeling and computational challenges to incorporate interactions among species, the main reason why there are few studies accounting for interactions is that obtaining sufficient data in most communities is intractable. Therefore, global-scale modeling of entire ecosystems appears to be the only viable solution, even if a challenging one (11, 22).
…
An important caveat is that while our virtual species are functionally realistic, they do not have taxonomic or phylogenetic meaning. Hence, our results reveal local changes in species diversity but do not provide information on global species extinctions per se. Neither does the model claim to produce an Earth replica, but instead aims to build an ecologically plausible Earth. Hence, the model cannot forecast Earth’s future but instead projects relative potential scenarios based on different assumptions (mainly carbon emissions) and reveals the underlying processes leading to those outcomes.
…
Read more: Same link as above
So what is this evidence of adaptability I mentioned, which undermines claims that food webs are fragile?
My example is the story of Australia’s successful and less than successful ecological interventions.
Early colonists brought lots of ornamental plants and animals. Some of them, like prickly pear, became a serious nuisance because of a lack of local predators.
A beetle, the cactoblastis moth, was introduced in 1926 to control the pear plants, which were colonising valuable agricultural land. The moths successfully and rapidly eradicated the bulk of the prickly pear infestation. Today you can still see prickly pears by the sides of roads, but the plants tend to be very sparse, with large gaps between individual plants.
Australians were pretty excited by this successful biological control of a pest species, so in 1935 another species was introduced to manage cane beetles, which were threatening Australia’s sugarcane production – the cane toad.
There was a problem. Cane toads helped protect the sugarcane. But cane toads are toxic – no Australian predator species could cope with their venom. Across vast swathes of Australia predator species numbers crashed. The last meal of all the dead predators was a cane toad.
But the predators didn’t all die. This is important later in this sorry tale.
At the height of the crisis, gardens in badly hit states like Queensland were full of dinner plate size toads which were so fat they could barely move – I remember visiting my uncle in Brisbane, and barely being able to walk across his garden for all the toxic toads littering the lawn. None of the toads bothered moving out of the way of people – decades of safety from predators had taught them they had nothing to fear from anything in Australia.
Then Australia’s raptors figured out a solution. The venom of the toads is mostly in their skin, mainly on their backs. So the crows learned to flip the toads over and eat the non-venomous parts.
I first started hearing stories about crows eating toads a decade ago. Then I started seeing it with my own eyes.
Now there are hardly any toads to be found, except dead toads. After nightfall when the crows are roosting, the toads come out. But the much smaller toads which survived the crow apocalypse do not usually appear until after dark, and their behaviour is nothing like their dinner plate size ancestors – they frantically hop away and hide at the slightest noise or movement.
The predator species have recovered – the Aussie woodlands are full of large predatory lizards once again, and other predator species which were devastated by the toad plague. The recovered predator populations have either learned to avoid eating the toads, or there are so few toads thanks to the raptors, the toads are no longer a significant threat to predator populations.
My question – which part of this real world story of ecological disaster and recovery shouts fragile food web?
In my opinion the European supercomputer food web experiment is way too unrealistic to draw real world conclusions. New connections in the real world food web appear all the time, no food resource remains underutilised for long, even when the underutilised resource is a deadly toxic toad. Any breaks in the food web caused by climate change or disease or whatever, in the real world are rapidly filled.
There are a handful of species which are so specialised they actually would die if their food source was removed. For example, Koala Bears are so specialised at eating Eucalyptus leaves, they would likely all die if say a Eucalypt version of Dutch Elm Disease killed off all the Eucalyptus trees.
But are 17.6% of vertebrate species so specialised they cannot adapt to a small change in temperature? Are 27% of vertebrates about to die out? That seems highly implausible.
A few degrees of warming, if it occurs, is not an asteroid scale ecological catastrophe, or a million year duration volcanic eruption, it is a mild shift in climatic conditions, which life will have no problem adapting to if the paleo record is any guide. Just like life has already adapted to the many climatic shifts, introduced species and other disruptions which have occurred in Earth’s geological past.
With the exception of…
A few avian friends (some Parrots, McCaws, etc)
Some reptilian friends (tortoises turtles and such)
Some Octogenarians, Nonagenarians, Centenarians, (and a few other fossils)
>95% of all vertebrates, invertebrates, mammals, fish, insect, bacterium etc. Alive today will ultimately succumb to and answer deaths call by 2100. A unknowable number of species both known and unknown will become extinct (perhaps 1 or 2, possibly 10 or 20, maybe 100 or 200).
And an equally unknowable amount will evolve through natural selection or mutation that didn’t exist before but will fill new niches
“Communities will lose up to a half of ecological interactions, thus reducing trophic complexity, network connectance, and community resilience.”
Sounds like a description of the regions in Australia when the renewables are installed. Didn’t need ‘modelling’ to show this devastation, and it’s happening now, no need to wait till 2100. Geez, I wonder how we can stop it?
Any place they want to build a turbine, salt the area with a number of endangered species and tell some vocal ecologist. Can’t build where endangered species build their homes
I wish you were right. Just one of the proposed sites near us has listed at least four endangered species. The developers only have to purchase certificates to absolve themselves of any responsibility of losses of these creatures.
Here in Massachusetts- the state severely restricts any logging within great distances of any endangered species- though almost every acre has been cut many times- initially clearcut in the 18th and 19th centuries, then logged many times since. Yet, when a solar “farm” was proposed near my neighborhood and I described several endangered species on the site- this fact was ignored and the “farm” was built.
Makes no difference what species is listed. One of the sites listed Koalas, apparently certificates make it all OK.
Tear down a park, put up a parking lot.
Devil’s Avocado incoming….
Looking at the picture of the Prickly Pears..
Before: A successful crop of greenery (high albedo)
It’s covering the ground/soil and protecting it from sun/wind.
Said crop is also sucking moisture out of the air, retaining it within itself
Thus giving the ‘field’ some (a lot of) thermal inertia (cools the days, warms the nights)
The plants themselves die/regrow, putting organic material into the soil where it retains moisture & nutrition, feeds and gives shelter to critters of all sorts
Said critters, as we’re told, then become food for other critters.
After: Then, we’re told and we see in the picture, you completely trash that ecosystem and turn it into what is obviously A Desert.
And you are pleased with yourself – you really do think you ‘Did Good’
You actually think that Desert = Precious Agricultural Land?
Jeez, Stop the world I wanna get off, otherwise there aren’t the words
Peta Australia has a total of only 6% arable land. Our total land mass is 7.688 million square kilometres and in their wisdom our government has decided that the prime agricultural land is a good place to install wind and solar.
The Prickly Pear was essentially a monoculture inedible weed, very difficult to destroy by mechanical means, and at the time was spreading ferociously. The grassland which replaced it might seem sparser but its more economically useful.
Dude!
Inedible!? You have obviously never sipped the nectar of the gods; a prickly pear margarita! Most excellent!
Prickly pear is edible and likely medicinal to boot, and not just the fruit.
Abundant prickly pear in the American Southwest from Texas west is also used as cattle feed during droughts.
The farmers use torches to burn the needles off of the cactus so that cattle can safely eat the cactus.
“Foraging for Prickly Pears and Scrambled Eggs with Nopales Recipe”
For those unaware of these green buggers, they do have some long spines.
The real danger is the little fuzzy tufts of what appears to be fuzz or hair.
These are actually needles and they imbed in skin at the slightest touch.
Worse, because they are thin, they easily spread to other places on the body.
When an uncle and I found my girlfriend bending and flexing a paddle, we were amused and quite horrified. She had been warned not to touch any cactus before asking us about a specific cactus.
I whispered to my uncle that he should grab her left hand while I grab her right.
This is to prevent her touching other parts of herself, especially the eyes.
While it is easy to break off the needles already in the skin, that is less important than removing any exposure of needles.
We used duct tape on my girlfriend’s hands who was busy calling us names. She shut up when we turned over the tape so she could see the needles in profile.
I hear others suggest using glue or wax to remove the needles.
A wax job does sound like it could remove the whole needle, I’ve never had the time to find wax, melt wax, cover the affected area, let cool, then peel up the wax and needles.
Prickly pear grows well in sand and rocks where regular plants have difficulty. It a poor trade, prickly pear instead of natural grass.
Not inedible: https://extension.unr.edu/publication.aspx?PubID=2157
“Prickly Pear (Opuntia) is a very flexible food source.”
If you ever visit the Raleigh (NC) area let me know and I’ll take you to a Mexican restaurant that serves it.
Prickly pear has a minimal root system.
I’ve encountered prickly pear where it slows the wind and caught layers of sand that covered the lower levels.
Other than that, prickly pear doesn’t put a lot of organic matter into the soil. Most of where the prickly pear grows naturally is decidedly dry desert, American Southwest down into Mexico.
Prickly pear is very hardy and grows in many locations, including where winters are quite cold.
One paddle of prickly pear can root easily, by itself. Additional water can cause the prickly pear to rot. This easy rooting is one of the reasons why prickly pear can explode in size and quantity quickly. The other main reason is that many animals eat the fruit and spread the seeds, naturally.
These modelers talk about food webs. They also tend to predict a plague of invertebrates like mosquitoes and locusts which are the food of many vertebrates [and they are currently pushing them on the highest vertebrate].
So, one clade of organisms will decline as its food source is increasing?
It’s just not logical, Captain.
Maybe not logical cap’n but I see a lot of red uniforms beaming down to the surface.
The vertebrates at risk are Homo (Sapiens) Viridis.
But they are vermin, anyway.
That would be Homo Verminis
To be more correct, use lower case V to get Homo verminis.
While in pedant mode, please cease and resist writing “Koala bear.” It is NOT a bear. Simply write “Koala.”
Finally, with reference to the paper, what mathematical equations on the supercomputer were used to include the “raptor eats non-toxic toad internals” in both a predictive sense and a calculation sense. How can you expect a right answer if you fail to input some factors?
There is limited value in extrapolation of past factors. Biota evolve in ways hard to predict and model. Australian birds like Magpies learned how to tap a new nutritious food source by sharp beaks making holes in the foil caps of delivered milk bottles. If this made them stronger and more able to survive predation, how to tell the supercomputer? And those British moths that were headed for extinction when they became easier to see as the tree bark beneath them became a lighter hue with less coal mining dust depositing? Simples, they evolved different wing hues to match the bark change. How do you put that into your supercomputer?
Geoff S
And please stop saying “ATM machine”. 🙂
You’re wondering how they programmed their computer?
10 print “It’s worse than we thought !!!!”
20 goto 10
Do all of the human vermin go around preaching that people should stop procreating and they strongly suggest most people should die and depopulate the Earth?
Some Homo verminis may be Homo viridis.
All preaching Homo viridis are by default, Homo verminis.
The Holy Computer Models have spoken. How dare you doubt them!!!
If you’re wondering why the above comment is blank, I copied and pasted the headline into the comment-writing area, then modified it. There it showed the text as the normal size. When I posted the comment, the text was the size of the headline above…like I was screaming the comment. Not my intent.
There appears to be no way to delete a once-posted comment, so I deleted all text with the edit-comment feature. Thus the blank comment.
Lesson learned,
Bob
I thought it was a METAPOST
Computer models are worthless if they don’t replicate existing data – hindcasting they call it climate circles but it’s just plain validation. They admit innocently that they don’t have any reliable data and then just toddle on to the simulation results as though nothing is problematic with that and breathlessly announce their predictions as though coming from Mt. Zion.
Stop Press:
Climate Scientists will become extinct by 2037 if current trends continue.
A small modelling exercise by amateur scientists shows that if the current growth in Climate Scepticism contines to increase at the same rate as the last 4 years there will be insufficient public belief in Net-Zero politicians and Climate Scientists for them to survive.
** No Polar Bears were harmed in this study.
I decided to write a climate model. Perhaps I can get a government grant for a few million like the others, but for now, I’m content to publish my findings.
I’ll even provide the source code:
int x = 1;
if (x == 1) printf “OMG!!! We’re Doomed!!!”;
The important part of this model is the choice of variable. Since real-world data is hard to find – I’m really too busy to even go outside most days – I have used my vast experience in Science to choose a value that best represents our planet’s future.
The truth may even be far worse than this model predicts.
I’ve never coded but shouldn’t that be:
While x =1;
int x = 1;
If (x == 1) printf “OMG!!! We’re Doomed!!!”;
printf “Send more money!!!”;
End While
Or something like that?
No, you’d likely get an error, since the variable x isn’t defined before entering your while loop. Can’t reference a variable before it’s defined, in all languages I’ve used.
I ran it through my compiler and yep, there’s an error.
The return code I got was:
Bug Check 0x4C: FATAL_UNHANDLED_JOKE_ERROR
🙂
Back up, give him more air, he’s joking to dearth
It wasn’t a bug, it was a feature.
In Python:
we_are_doomed = True while we_are_doomed: print("OMG We're Doomed!!!")In MontyPython:
Knights_who_say_Ni = True
while Knights_who_say_Ni:
print(“Ni”)
“they decided to create their own data.”
Did they by Jove. Almost as funny as the cry baby Peter Kalmus being ejected from the AGU
I noticed the same statement.
It seems to be the go-to academic method nowadays even if real data is available. Apparently it is easier to make up stuff than looking out the window.
The computer
modelersgamers are still trying to convince us that their virtual reality is real. Life goes on without them.I predict that most woke greens will die or be seriously vaxx-injured by 2026.
Society will run out of Darwin Awards, and the weighted average IQ of the global population will increase by 12.17 points.
12.17 points, huh.
I think you are either overestimating the IQ of the woke greenies or underestimating the number of woke greens that will die or be seriously vax injured.
I predict that cardiologists will be in great demand shortly. Unfortunately, to maintain their jobs, they were coerced into taking the jab and will require their own services.
A “Super” computer model developed by “experts” predicts — the extinction of all existing and future anthropogenic co2 related “climate” model species by 2050. The study concludes that no matter what preservation or retention strategies are put in place, climate models are doomed.
Interestingly, the 28-year mortality expectancy bizarrely corresponds directly with the U.N. global Nut-Zero illogical timeframe.
When atmospheric CO2 levels were over 20 times the present-day levels of 410 ppm:
I am now in my seventies and the outside air temperature (in my experience) does not appear to be any hotter or colder than it was when I was a boy. Air temperature is certainly not going to be the cause of the end of all life on earth in the foreseeable future. Any rational person with a modicum of common sense is aware of these truths – surely?
During the last century the occasional person (who was obviously not in full possession of his/her mental faculties) would walk the streets declaring loudly that the end was nigh. Today these mentally dysfunctional people seem to be the norm!
What has gone wrong with our educational systems since last century?
What has happened to common sense and logical thought?
Common sense is their enemy. And logic no longer applies
KAT,
The modern academy puts a rather high premium on instilling fear and insanity in students.
I believe most are now giving extra credit for hysteria and catatonia!
The mentally deficient declaring the end is nigh, are now elected into office.
They started out by dumbing down and indocrinating the children. The dumb and indocrinated don’t notice the incompetance and corruption of the politicians and vote them in.
It is all going according to the scheme devised by Lenin and simplified by Alinsky. Alinsky boiled it down to 8 control mechanisms which only require the key people to set the agenda:
1) Healthcare– Control healthcare and you control the people, especially the aged.
2) Poverty – Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
3) Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
4) Gun Control– Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.
5) Welfare – Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income)
6) Education and Media – Take control of what people read and listen to – take control of what children learn in school and what the general public are exposed to.
7) Religion – Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools
8) Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.
I would add to the list that Alinsky made to bring it to the modern authoritarian program:
9) Energy Control. – All activity is limited by energy. Restrict reliable energy and you accelerate the spread of poverty, debt, welfare, and class warfare.
The green loonies are some of the useful idiots that have bought into the propaganda for the Great Reset.
Does any of this sound familiar?
8a) Race and ethnic war. Divide the country along racial and ethnic lines, this way you can keep groups fighting each other, making it impossible for them to come together to fight the real enemy, government.
Agreed!
What’s more is that we knew where it would be hottest, like working on asphalt and where it would be cooler, under some trees while near water.
Of course, climate scientists first want to homogenize away those differences. Hansen and his follower actively eliminated rural stations, higher altitude stations and decided that temperature stations in airports near acres of asphalt were their best.
Hogwash!
Cultists never use common sense or logical thought, it harms their religious beliefs.
Well, I suppose this study kept Messrs. Strona and Bradshaw off the streets for a while.
Now that they have finished it, perhaps they could do something useful and come and sweep the white global warming stuff off my driveway. I’m sure they can get a grant from somewhere.
Another prediction. All current computer models will have died out by 2100.
Since the worst climate change prediction is unfeasible according to the IPCC, the whole story is BS
The mere mention of SSP8.5 in a peer-reviewed paper tells you all you need to know about the peer-review process
This is a typical “if” and “then” argument. Most concern themselves with the “then” part without considering the probability of the “if” side.
If I choose the correct Power Ball numbers, then I will have $$ millions.
An interesting article, but quite unnecessary to read beyond…”Computer modelling has shown the variety of vertebrate animal species found in locations across the globe could be cut by 27 per cent by the end of the century.”
Yes, you have to watch out for the weasel words.
“The simulation conducted on one of Europe’s most powerful supercomputers…”
If the model is defective (as all are), what good is running on a super duper fantastic computer? Are we suppossed to be impressed?
The word “adaption” just seems weird to me.
Modelling and Big Money
“Labs vary in size, but a typical climate modeling lab is of the order of 200 people (including scientists, technicians, and admin support). And most of the models I’ve looked at have been under steady development for twenty years or more. So, that gives us starting point of 200*20 = 4,000 person-years. Luckily, most scientists care more about science than salary, so they’re much cheaper than software professionals. Given we’ll have a mix of postdocs and senior scientists, let’s say average salary would be around $150,000 per year including benefits and other overheads. That’s $600 million.
Oh, and that doesn’t including the costs of equipping and operating a tier-2 supercomputing facility, as the climate model runs will easily keep such a facility fully loaded full time (and we’ll need to factor in the cost to replace the supercomputer every few years to take advantage of performance increases).”
https://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/2010/09/whats-the-pricetag-on-a-global-climate-model/
Computer models represent the real world and its future the way fashion models represent Walmart shoppers.
That made me chuckle, thanks.
Why has so much of our supposed science establishment, completely abandoned the principles of science, just as our leadership elite have abandoned the principles of good governance and our public’s media no longer have any interest in honest journalism.
I’m beginning to think that “computer model” is just another way of saying nonsense
How many new species will arrive by 2100?
A lot more if a few of the old ones die off.
Man has met the enemy and the enemy is ….man. Fur seals in Antarctica have recovered from being hunted to near extinction but the seals are threatening the sparse flora. South Florida has a python problem …an iguana problem….and a wild pig one thanks to man. China has few birds….little wildlife in general…due to Mao and man. 8 billion humans on the planet is enough….why more? Plastics have been detected in snow in Antarctica and all the oceans.
“The authors of the study admitted that gathering real world data is difficult, so they decided to create their own data.”
Well at least they have stayed in the field of their expertise. Climate change boffins have PhDs in making up their own data when nature does something they don’t like. Like Beyond Meat^тм this ersatz model could be termed Beyond Models!
These guys actually seem to believe that nature is inflexible and incapable of adapting to change.
If species A eats primarily species B, if species B dies out, the species A will also die out, since no animal ever has figured out how to eat something else.
They also assume that no animal is capable of adapting to changing conditions. No animal is capable of moving its range to adapt to warmer or colder. It’s completely impossible for animals to adapt their behavior if there is small change in precipitation levels.
Good Grief!
“The authors of the study admitted that gathering real world data is difficult, so they decided to create their own data.”
Papers usually get retracted when it is found that the authors have “created their own data” whole cloth out of their imaginations.
Surely they’re not still using those flawed computer models? That’s the definition of insanity
A computer will only ever tell you precisely what you tell it to. If you tell it to be disfunctional it will do so as well… and computers are always precisely wrong.
I thought I heard many years ago that Koala (or is that koalas) are also cannibalistic when required
Introducing the author’s extreme bias.
Reinforcing, that the authors’ are biased. No-one sane uses a Climate “worst case” scenario as everyone involved admits it is far too extreme.
Just how does a computer program decide any animal is going to die? Let alone, the entire species perishes all over the globe?
They don’t unless someone hard codes in ‘XX’ means an animal dies, ‘XXX’ means the entire species falls over dead, immediately.
The author’s never experienced an animal dying because their environment turned deadly. As such, their program design is a truly rank amateur attempt.
And they wasted super computer time to run this thing?
And they rest their case. Personally, I think they’re reread “Silent Spring” too often.
i didnt realise the cane toad problem in australia had been solved. i had noted some news articles about crows stressing the toads, washing them and then eating them, but didnt realise that thia behaviour was so widespread that the can toad problem was solved.
strangely, wikipedia hasnt noticed such a profoundly important result either.
layers of bs.