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Hunter Cutting

80% of Whitebark Pines in Inner West dead or dying - 0 views

www.nrdc.org/...100722a.asp

climate change impact whitebark pine species temperature pests

shared by Hunter Cutting on 05 Aug 10 - Cached
  • The new report shows that over 80% of the whitebark pine forests of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana are already dead or dying.
  • “The red and grey trees littering the western landscape are a testament to the fact that North America’s forests are under assault,” said Louisa Willcox, senior wildlife advocate for NRDC and one of the minds behind a new report on whitebark pine mortality in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. “Climate change is hitting the whitebark pine hard by allowing mountain pine beetles access to previously inhospitable forests at higher elevations.  Whitebark, which grows from roughly 8500 feet up to treeline, has never had to fight off a threat like this, and if we don’t act quickly, we could lose this essential tree species.”
  • Unfortunately for those dependent wildlife species, such as squirrels, chipmunks, grosbeaks, crossbills, and grizzlies (especially in Yellowstone) as well as other creatures, whitebark pine forests are being decimated throughout their range by an array of threats that have emerged in high-elevation environments, as a result of climate change, particularly now swarming mountain pine beetles, as well as an invasive nonnative disease, blister rust.
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  • global warming has only recently allowed beetles to flourish in high-elevation whitebark pine forests, where the trees have not evolved strong defenses. Until recently, harsh winters have kept mountain pine beetles (which are the size of a grain of rice) at bay. Warmer temperatures have dramatically increased the beetles’ numbers and allowed them to move upwards to attack the whitebark pines, a number of which have been made more susceptible due to weakening by blister rust. The result is the loss of more than half of historical whitebark stands across their range, with far worse numbers in some areas. In the eastern portion of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, for example, whitebark pine forests have been already functionally lost.
  • Whitebark pine forests have been hit particularly hard in the Northern Rockies. NRDC and the US Forest Service helped fund an unprecedented aerial survey of the entire 20 million acre Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem to investigate mortality levels of whitebark pine throughout the region. A groundbreaking pairing of airplane overflights with GIS and field-based evaluation techniques have given a new and more detailed understanding of the impact being felt by the region’s whitebark population. The data was brought together by prominent academics leading the research team, to map out the beetle carnage and evaluate the pattern of tree mortality in the region. Released today, the report shows 82% of the Greater Yellowstone whitebark pine forests of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana dead or dying (high to medium mortality rates). The mundane title, Using the Landscape Assessment System (LAS) to Assess Mountain Pine Beetle-Caused Mortality of Whitebark Pine, Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, 2009 belies the explosive results, which imply that the problem is far worse than had been previously known. The study was written by prominent experts Wally Macfarlane, Dr. Jesse Logan and Willie Kern. Based on these data, and considering the rapid changes, the report authors believe it is likely that whitebark pine will be functionally extinct in the ecosystem within the next 4-7 years.
Hunter Cutting

Ocean Ecosystems Transforming Due to Climate Change - 0 views

www.ouramazingplanet.com/ing-due-to-climate-change-0282

oceans ecosystems food chain penguins phytoplankton polar krill salps

shared by Hunter Cutting on 18 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Global climate change is fundamentally disrupting marine ecosystems, especially in the polar oceans, according to two new reviews of scientific research released Thursday in the journal Science.
  • Changes in temperature, ocean acidity and volume are affecting species from phytoplankton — the microscopic marine plants at base of the food chain — to polar bears, which may lose 68 percent of their summer habitat by 2100. "Climate change is affecting an enormously wide range of physical and biological aspects of the ocean," said John Bruno, a University of North Carolina marine ecologist and co-author of one of the reviews. "Once you start tweaking temperature, everything changes." Photosynthesis by phytoplankton is down six percent since the 1980s, and the organisms themselves are getting smaller thanks to warmer temperatures, the review noted.
  • Less plankton means less food for fish, which in turn means less seafood for human consumption. Phytoplankton also absorb carbon dioxide from the air and sequester it at the seafloor when they die and sink to the bottom of the ocean. Fewer phytoplankton could mean more human carbon dioxide emissions stay in the atmosphere, Bruno said, further exacerbating the climate change problem.
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  • The "canary in the coalmine" for all of these shifts is the polar oceans, said Oscar Schofield, an oceanographer at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey and a co-author of the second review, which focuses on changes at the West Antarctic Peninsula. There, the authors found, temperatures have increased by 6 degrees Celsius in the past 50 years, more than five times the average change worldwide. Phytoplankton blooms are down 12 percent overall. Krill populations — important food for whales, penguins, fish and other large animals — are plummeting, with jellyfish-like organisms called salps, which don't make as good a meal, taking their place.
  • Above the surface, the polar Adélie penguin population has gone from tens of thousands of breeding pairs to just a few thousand, Schofield said. Temperate species of penguin like the Chinstrap and Gintoo are moving into the Adélie’s old turf. Particularly shocking, Schofield said, is how rapidly these changes are occurring. "It's not like it's happening over hundreds of years," he said. "It's happening over decades."
Hunter Cutting

Global warming driving 40 per cent decline in the ocean's phytoplankton - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...ans-phytoplankton-2038074.html

climate change impact species algae global oceans phytoplankton

shared by Hunter Cutting on 29 Jul 10 - Cached
  • The dead sea: Global warming blamed for 40 per cent decline in the ocean's phytoplankton Microscopic life crucial to the marine food chain is dying out. The consequences could be catastrophic
  • The microscopic plants that support all life in the oceans are dying off at a dramatic rate, according to a study that has documented for the first time a disturbing and unprecedented change at the base of the marine food web. Scientists have discovered that the phytoplankton of the oceans has declined by about 40 per cent over the past century, with much of the loss occurring since the 1950s. They believe the change is linked with rising sea temperatures and global warming.
  • If the findings are confirmed by further studies it will represent the single biggest change to the global biosphere in modern times, even bigger than the destruction of the tropical rainforests and coral reefs, the scientists said yesterday.
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  • Phytoplankton are microscopic marine organisms capable of photosynthesis, just like terrestrial plants. They float in the upper layers of the oceans, provide much of the oxygen we breathe and account for about half of the total organic matter on Earth. A 40 per cent decline would represent a massive change to the global biosphere."If this holds up, something really serious is underway and has been underway for decades. I've been trying to think of a biological change that's bigger than this and I can't think of one," said marine biologist Boris Worm of Canada's Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He said: "If real, it means that the marine ecosystem today looks very different to what it was a few decades ago and a lot of this change is happening way out in the open, blue ocean where we cannot see it. I'm concerned about this finding."The researchers studied phytoplankton records going back to 1899 when the measure of how much of the green chlorophyll pigment of phytoplankton was present in the upper ocean was monitored regularly. The scientists analysed about half a million measurements taken over the past century in 10 ocean regions, as well as measurements recorded by satellite.They found that phytoplankton had declined significantly in all but two of the ocean regions at an average global rate of about 1 per cent per year, most of which since the mid 20th Century. They found that this decline correlated with a corresponding rise in sea-surface temperatures – although they cannot prove that warmer oceans caused the decline.The study, published in the journal Nature, is the first analysis of its kind and deliberately used data gathered over such a long period of time to eliminate the sort of natural fluctuations in phytoplankton that are known to occur from one decade to the next due to normal oscillations in ocean temperatures, Dr Worm said. "Phytoplankton are a critical part of our planetary life support system. They produce half of the oxygen we breathe, draw down surface CO2 and ultimately support all of our fishes." he said.But some scientists have warned that the Dalhousie University study may not present a realistic picture of the true state of marine plantlife given that phytoplankton is subject to wide, natural fluctuations."Its an important observation and it's consistent with other observations, but the overall trend can be overinterpreted because of the masking effect of natural variations," said Manuel Barange of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and a phytoplankton expert.
  • However, the Dalhousie scientists behind the three-year study said they have taken the natural oscillations of ocean temperatures into account and the overall conclusion of a 40 per cent decline in phytoplankton over the past century still holds true. "Phytoplankton are the basis of life in the oceans and are essential in maintaining the health of the oceans so we should be concerned about its decline."It's a very robust finding and we're very confident of it," said Daniel Boyce, the lead author of the study."Phytoplankton is the fuel on which marine ecosystems run. A decline of phytoplankton affects everything up the food chain, including humans," Dr Boyce said.
  • Phytoplankton is affected by the amount of nutrients the well up from the bottom of the oceans. In the North Atlantic phytoplankton "blooms" naturally in spring and autumn when ocean storms bring nutrients to the surface. One effect of rising sea temperatures has been to make the water column of some regions nearer the equator more stratified, with warmer water sitting on colder layers of water, making it more difficult for nutrients to reach the phytoplankton at the sea surface.Warmer seas in tropical regions are also known to have a direct effect on limiting the growth of phytoplankton.
Hunter Cutting

Jellyfish blooms proliferating in warmer, saltier oceans - 0 views

www.jellyfishart.com/kb_results.asp

jellyfish species climate change impact Bering Sea oceans Arctic

shared by Hunter Cutting on 25 Jun 10 - Cached
  • while weather patterns are some of the most visible indicators of climate change, we are able to look at other patterns in the ecosystem as equally important measurements.  Among these patterns are jellyfish blooms, which are proliferating at an incredible pace. 
  • There are a number of factors contributing to the increase of jellyfish blooms, most of which are linked to global warming.  Jellyfish are thriving due to warmer and saltier waters as well as an increase in plankton growth.  In addition, overfishing has created a niche for jellyfish to exploit.  In years before predators were consuming much more of the ocean’s nutrients.  Now however, there is less competition leaving more for jellyfish.  This is also the case with agricultural runoff, where jellyfish are able to capitalize on the organisms feeding on the bacteria.  The current trend in climate change shows that the ice cover is melting much later in the spring, spawning more rapid and increased amounts of plankton growth.  There are various theories based on this evidence, but perhaps the strongest supports the idea that increased sunlight is favorable for the plankton.  This is especially true in colder regions such as the Bearing Sea, where scientists and fisherman alike have noticed drastic increases in jellyfish blooms.  But despite recent awareness, population control will only be a reality once the global climate patterns stabilize. For most, summer draughts mean hot days and dry gardens.  For jellyfish, however, it means saltier waters.  As rain becomes less frequent there is less fresh water entering the ocean.  Although it’s not the case with all jellyfish, most will benefit from a higher salt content.  This also relates to other predators and fish species, which are less tolerant of the salt increase and will often move from the coast into deeper, less salty waters.  As the ocean gets warmer and the water level rises, the jellyfish survival rate also goes up.  It creates the right conditions for jellyfish blooms to prosper, which results in a longer span of migration.  Now there are jellyfish species that are being labeled invasive.  Beachgoers have to swim with a new element of caution, unable to know which new species has moved in, and which has left. 
  • Hunter Cutting on 25 Jun 10
     
    A report from a commercial jellyfish aquarium manufacturer
Hunter Cutting

Fog over San Francisco thins by a third due to climate change - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...ird-due-to-climate-change.html

climate change impact San Francisco California USA weather fog

shared by Hunter Cutting on 08 Jun 10 - Cached
  • The coastal fog along the Californian coast has declined by a third over the past 100 years – the equivalent of three hours cover a day, new research shows. And it is not just bad for scenery, the reduction in the cooling effect of the fog could damage the health of the huge Redwood Forests nearby.
  • "Since 1901, the average number of hours of fog along the coast in summer has dropped from 56 per cent to 42 per cent, which is a loss of about three hours per day," said the study leader Dr James Johnstone at the University of California. He said that it was unclear whether this is part of a natural cycle of the result of human activity, but the fog is receding because of a reduction in the difference between the temperature of the sea and the land. "A cool coast and warm interior is one of the defining characteristics of California's coastal climate, but the temperature difference between the coast and interior has declined substantially in the last century, in step with the decline in summer fog," he added.
  • Professor Todd Dawson, co-author, said the decline could be disastrous for the nearby ecosystems.
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  • "Fog prevents water loss from Redwoods in summer, and is really important for both the tree and the forest," he said. "If the fog is gone, we might not have the Redwood forests we do now."
Hunter Cutting

Australia's peanut farmers relocating thousands of kilometers for water - 0 views

www.universityworldnews.com/article.php

climate change impact Australia drought farmers agriculture peanutes

shared by Hunter Cutting on 10 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Australia's peanut farmers are on the move and some are relocating nearly 2,400 kilometres away for better access to water; last year 88 people in Victoria died on the way to hospital as a result of the heat wave that preceded the disastrous bushfires in early February; the average temperature across the Australian continent has risen by more than 0.8°C in the past 60 years; the Great Barrier Reef is degrading; and more than 40% of the nation's farmers are seriously worried about the viability of their businesses in the face of climate change.These are just some of the effects of climate change unveiled by academics, scientists, social scientists and public servants from universities, research institutes and government agencies at a Universities Australia National Policy Forum held at Parliament House in Canberra in March. The contributors provided unequivocal evidence that climate change was occurring across Australia, that it was accelerating and that its impact on society and the national economy was already apparent. Universities Australia is the peak industry body representing Australia's 39 universities in the public interest, nationally and internationally. The forum was held at Parliament House to attract the attention of the politicians who, for the most part, have paid little mind to tackling the problems caused by climate change. Speakers at the forum backed the detailed measurements of climate change presented in a report released just before the forum by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
  • Farmers are among the first to feel the impact of climate change. Already the peanut industry had assessed its future and a part had decided to move, said Professor Graham Baker and Dr Roger Stone from the University of Southern Queensland. They noted that the cotton industry was also undergoing a consultation process about where it was headed while the rice crop in the Riverina had dropped from a million tonnes a year to less than 50,000. The harvest date for wine growers has been moving a day earlier each year since 1980, according to data accumulated by Professor Snow Barlow of Melbourne University's school of land and environment. Snow is a professor of horticulture and viticulture and Convener of a primary industries adaptation research network. He said dry-land crops were being sown later and harvested earlier. This added to the evidence of changes in the timing of the life cycles of flowering plants and birds, according to his colleague, Dr Marie Keatley of the university's department of forest and ecosystems. "In many places in Australia, such as grain-cropping in the Mallee in northern Victoria, we are getting to the limits of adaptive management where farmers can change what they are doing within their existing system," Barlow said. "Given the climate data from the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, it won't be too long before we have to consider changing our agriculture systems entirely." But not all the news was bad, said Professor Amanda Lynch from the school of geography and environmental sciences at Monash University in Melbourne: "By an accident of our geography, Australia is a country that is subjected to very large changes over a decadal time scale because of the El Niño phenomenon. "So we already have an agricultural sector and a water management sector that is used to large swings over long time scales. We are used to pragmatic, messy, contingent approaches."
Hunter Cutting

Jellyfish swarm into warm waters off Ireland - 0 views

www.irishtimes.com/...1224273558296.html

jellyfish climate change impact oceans Ireland

shared by Hunter Cutting on 29 Jun 10 - Cached
  • SIGHTINGS OF exotic snake pipefish, swarms of jellyfish and an “unprecedented” rise in sea surface temperatures indicate climate change is having a significant effect on Ireland’s marine ecosystems, according to a new report.Swarms of jellyfish, increased wave heights off the southwest coast and a greater variety of warm-water species in Irish waters have also been recorded by the authors of the report published today by the Marine Institute.
  • The authors noted that increases of sea surface temperature – at a rate of 0.6 degrees a decade – have been recorded since 1994. This is “unprecedented” in the past 150 years, the Marine Institute says.This temperature rise has been linked to an increase in microscopic plants and animals, along with species of jellyfish. The institute says increased numbers of most warm-water fish species have been observed in Irish waters.
Hunter Cutting

Poison ivy crops at record levels in Chicago, East spurred by elevated CO2 - 0 views

articles.chicagotribune.com/...ivy-plant-species-elevated-co2

climate change impact poison ivy species USA Chicago

shared by Hunter Cutting on 24 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Bolstered by mild winters and heavy spring rains, the poison ivy creeping across the Chicago landscape this summer is at bumper crop levels.The abundance of poison ivy and other invasive plants proliferating in Illinois and across much of the nation this year is a symptom of a scenario more serious than an itchy red rash, experts say.Elevated CO2 levels in the atmosphere, although destructive to many plant species, are proving a boon for adaptive weeds such as poison ivy, said Lewis Ziska, a federal plant physiologist.
  • "We are up to our arms in poison ivy this summer," said Ziska, with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Md. The higher CO2 levels, he said, also are contributing to an increasing abundance of kudzu, the legendary vine once limited to the South but was discovered lurking in central Illinois and as far north as Canada. Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director for the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, said recent studies show that poison ivy is not only more prevalent across the U.S. but more toxic, too. The rise in CO2 levels strengthens an oil in the plant that triggers itchy havoc when it touches the skin, he said. The heavy rains, warmer temperatures and rising CO2 levels that have disturbed plant chemistry also have increased pollen counts, leading to higher rates of asthma and allergies. "It's not an accident we're having this perfect storm," said Epstein. "Pests and pathogens thrive in extreme events, like floods or droughts. We need to stabilize the climate by reducing fossil fuel emissions dramatically." John Masiunas, an associate professor in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign, said he is unaware of any quantitative data tracking an increase in poison ivy taking root across the state. But, he said, "it makes perfect sense that higher CO2 levels will make these plants more efficient." The plant has "a survivor's ability" to grow in a variety of environments, Masiunas said, adding that climate change is also detrimental to endangered species such as native thistles and orchids that require specific soils and pollinators to thrive. "When climate change occurs … it is poor for these plants and contributes to the extinction of the species," Masiunas said. "When endangered plants are competing in an agricultural ecosystem, they start losing, and plants like poison ivy start doing better."
Hunter Cutting

Seabird populations drop by half in UK as climate change disrupts foodchain - 0 views

www.heraldscotland.com/...ions-decline-by-half-1.1044199

climate change impact Scotland UK species seabirds sea_gulls

shared by Hunter Cutting on 28 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Climate change is starving Scotland’s seabirds into a drastic population decline that leaves some species dangerously close to extinction, the RSPB has warned. A major 10-year study by the Westminster Government’s conservation adviser found that the number of common gulls in the UK has fallen by almost half over the last decade. Scarcity of traditional food sources as sea temperatures rise may be forcing them to seek alternatives on land, which may be why residents of some seaside towns have complained that the birds, also called European herring gulls, are becoming more aggressive.
  • In its report, published today, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) says that over a decade the number of breeding kittiwakes has fallen by 40%, while there has been a 38% decline in fulmars. The biggest drop affects the common gull, however, with a 43% reduction in breeding pairs between 1999 and 2009.
  • The JNCC’s Population Trends and Causes of Change 2010 report uses UK-wide figures, with no regional breakdown available, but the RSPB said anecdotal evidence in Scotland seemed to confirm an impact north of the border. “Early reports of seabird breeding performances on RSPB Scotland’s coastal reserves unfortunately seem to reflect this worrying trend, with things particularly tough in the Northern Isles,” said Doug Gilbert, the charity’s Scottish reserves ecologist.
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  • At the RSPB’s Orkney reserve, many kittiwake nests have been found abandoned. Arctic terns have also struggled in the Northern Isles, and failed to breed significantly this year. Gilbert said: “The most likely cause is a lack of food, especially for terns and kittiwakes, which feed on sandeels. “Worryingly, it looks like this problem is being driven by climate change affecting the marine ecosystem from the bottom up.”
  • Although herring gulls are among the most commonly encountered birds in Scottish towns and cities, particularly in coastal areas, they were added to the RSPB’s “red list” of at-risk species last year. The latest 43% decline in their numbers means an overall 25-year fall of at least 70%.
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