Unchecked global warming would wipe out 50% of species

Jim Hansen, the Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University's Earth Institute, predicts that unchecked global warming would push at least 50% of the worlds' species out of their survival zones:

During the past thirty years the lines marking the regions in which a given average temperature prevails ("isotherms") have been moving poleward at a rate of about thirty-five miles per decade. That is the size of a county in Iowa. Each decade the range of a given species is moving one row of counties northward.

As long as the total movement of isotherms toward the poles is much smaller than the size of the habitat, or the ranges in which the animals live, the effect on species is limited. But now the movement is inexorably toward the poles and totals more than a hundred miles over the past several decades. If emissions of greenhouse gases continue to increase at the current rate—"business as usual"—then the rate of isotherm movement will double in this century to at least seventy miles per decade. If we continue on this path, a large fraction of the species on Earth, as many as 50 percent or more, may become extinct.

The species most at risk are those in polar climates and the biologically diverse slopes of alpine regions. Polar animals, in effect, will be pushed off the planet. [...] [New York Review of Books]

Hansen goes to review Tim Flannery's Weather, Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe, as well as the book and movie versions of An Inconvenient Truth, in the process he succinctly summarizes the mechanisms of global warming, the likely consequences, the evidence supporting these projections, and the major political and economic solutions to the climate crisis.

It is a someone unnerving commentary on today's political climate that Hansen chose the following preface for his essay, '"His opinions are expressed here, he writes, "as personal views under the protection of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution."'

Comments

[Lawrence Krubner]

"It is a someone unnerving commentary on today's political climate that Hansen chose to the following preface for his essay, "

I assume you mean:

"It is a somewhat unnerving commentary on today's political climate that Hansen chose the following preface for his essays..."

[bob koepp]

Hansen has a dog in this fight, and a history of exaggerating claims in the service of "getting people's attention." Grains of salt should be kept within easy reach.

[JJackson]

This is readily observable, with species loss, in mountain environments. As the climate warms the tree line / snow line etc. move up and the inhabitants at the top – unlike those in Iowa – have no where to go but extinction.

[Steve LaBonne]

Nice to see Idiot Bob is still here. Wonder what his qualifications are to make such remarks about his betters. Not that anyone cares what nitwits say.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Hello Steve--psst, no ad hominems though. Bob's arguments can usually be readily defeated using logic.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Although I do agree with your stance on global warming, and I appreciate your input always.

[Steve LaBonne]

You miss the point, 1984. Bob is simply a brain-dead troll, and should be treated as such. Logic is wasted on him. For some random idiot to make that snide comment about a scientist of Hansen's distinction is just plain obnoxious and the appropriate response is simply to point that out, not to try to take his "arguments" seriously. That's the same mistake our mainstream meadia consistently make when they insist on including non-existent "other sides" to "balance" their stories.

Our country is being run into the ground by dangerous idiots in high places, who got where they are in considerable part because of this misguided insistence on according respect to the views of people who are ignorant and stupid, and who for their part have no respect at all for the truth. I for one am not just going to put up with this situation meekly.

[bob koepp]

I apologize for attributing to Hansen a view that should have been attributed to Stephen Schneider. Hansen, in fact, has stated that though it may have been appropriate to emphasize extreme scenarios "when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue," there is now a need for "objective climate scenarios." I stand corrected.

Attempts to intimidate me with insults reveal the depth of your commitment to (or perhaps the height of your attainment of) critical thinking.

[Steve LaBonne]

Nobody's trying to intimidate you, troll; just ridicule you.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

>Our country is being run into the ground by dangerous idiots in high places, who got where they are in considerable part because of this misguided insistence on according respect to the views of people who are ignorant and stupid, and who for their part have no respect at all for the truth. I for one am not just going to put up with this situation meekly.

I understand, my friend. It is also true that, especially regarding global warming, a vocal group of "scientists," well-paid by the very industries which would be affected by addressing global warming, have insisted that their views be accorded the same place in the debate as the majority, whose methods are not suspect.

[cfrost]

Oh Jeeze, not another cat fight.
A warming climate will have profound effects on biota everywhere, but pinning climate change specifically as the culprit on the decline or extinction of a particular organism is hard to do. Global warming deniers will always be able to point to some weakness in the data and claim that the study doesn’t prove anything. Even if climate change can be identified as the unequivocal cause of extinction of a particular organism, the “climate skeptics” can say that a stray exception or two only proves the rule.
An example of an animal whose decline could parsimoniously be linked to climate change, but which is nevertheless hard to nail down is the pica. They’re related to rabbits, look like guinea pigs, and live exclusively in alpine talus slopes. In the Great Basin they live in isolated populations on mountain ranges surrounded by lowland habitat that has presented an impassable barrier to dispersal since the end of the last ice age. Pika populations are winking out one by one, and the surviving ones are moving upslope. The study cited below documents the extinction of several populations and attempts to correlate reasons. The most important factors associated with survival of a given population of pikas are: total area of suitable habitat, elevation of habitat, distance from roads, and presence or absence of livestock. Basically, if a population has lots of talus at high elevation, is not bothered (or recreationally shot at) by people, and has no cattle trampling it’s feeding meadows, it’s doing ok so far. However, there have been more northern populations than southern populations die out, which is just the sort of grist that feeds climate skeptics’ mill. Reference and abstract follow.
Beever, E. A.; Brussard, P. F., and Berger, J. Patterns of Apparent Extirpation Among Isolated Populations Of Pikas (Ochotona Princeps) In The Great Basin. Journal of Mammalogy [J. Mammal.]. 2003 Feb; 84(1):37-54; ISSN: 0022-2372. Publisher: American Society of Mammalogists

We conducted exploratory analyses to examine the relative roles played by natural and anthropogenic influences on persistence of a montane mammal. We revisited historical locations of pikas (Ochotona princeps) within the hydrographic Great Basin during summers of 1994-1999. Seven of 25 populations (28%) reported earlier in the 20th century appeared to have experienced recent extirpations. We assessed causative agents of faunal change using several alternative, but not mutually exclusive, hypotheses. Higher probability of persistence was correlated with greater area of talus habitat at local and mountain-range scales, higher elevation, more easterly longitude, more southern latitude, lack of livestock grazing, greater distance to primary roads, and wilderness management. However, only area of habitat in the mountain range, maximum elevation of talus habitat, and distance to primary roads appeared in the most parsimonious model of persistence when we used Akaike's information criterion model-selection technique. These results suggest that relaxation of montane faunas may occur more rapidly than previously expected; that biogeographic models of species occurrence can be refined by including more proximate factors (e.g., grazing status, proximity to roads); and that habitat-based approaches to modelling vertebrate trends should be accompanied by field data because population loss can occur with no apparent change in habitat.

[bob koepp]

you might be interested in what a climate scientist at least equal to Hansen in "stature" thinks ...

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597

[Steve LaBonne]

No, actually, I'm not at all interested in your creationist-style debating tactics. Lindzen's reflexive oppositionism is very much a known quantity, discounted long since by 99.9% of climate scientists in the world. Meanwhile, Hansen's excellent article summarizes the overwhelming consenus of the relevant scientific communities, something not even Lindzen himself would deny.

Climate skepticism has lost whatever shreds of respectability it ever had. It's as though you are driving rapidly toward the edge of a cliff, in a car whose brakes you have good reason to believe are defective. Your position is that you shouldn't take your foot off the gas and turn aside, because after all it's not 100% certain that the brakes won't work and you just might be able to stop.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Thanks again cfrost. Your input goes far toward making this a well-informed debate, instead of a catfight. I'd like to know what you project as far as the effects of global warming on the food chain, and on us, through species extinction in the case of fauna, and adverse weather conditions in the case of crops and water.

[Steve LaBonne]

Link for 1984

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Thanks my friend--looks like I'll have some reading to do, though I also hope that cfrost still posts a link or two as well.

[Steve LaBonne]

The bottom line is that of the multiple bad effects of warming the effects on agriculture might be among the more manageable- if we're smart and lucky. (Though as in other aspects the developing world is likely to get the worst of it.) But when you're playing Russian roulette, complacency is unwise...

[bob koepp]

I appreciate cfrost's efforts to introudce factual material about the effects of a warming climate on habitat.

Mr LaBonne, on the other hand, while likening me to a creationist, refuses even to look at what a very prominent climate scientist says, and even claims 99.9% of climate scientists share his poor opinion of Lindzen. That's a bogus statistic if ever there was one -- evidence of LaBonne's own style of "argument."

Oh, and 1984... to be pitied for his willful ignorance.

[cfrost]

1984, I’m just a fish geek, I’m not in the prediction business. I know this: I’ve sat at the edge of talus fields and watched pikas at work cutting and stacking hay for their winter larders and I’ve seen them whistle and dive for cover at the sight of golden eagles and once a weasel. Normally, they squeak like squeeze toys - They don’t make ‘em any cuter than a pika. North America has only one species of pika. There are other species in Asia where they presumably evolved, and some of them are facing the same sort of trouble as ours:
Wei-Dong, L. and Smith, A. T. Dramatic decline of the threatened Ili pika Ochotona iliensis (Lagomorpha: Ochotonidae) in Xinjiang, China. Oryx [Oryx]. 2005 Jan; 39(1):30-34; ISSN: 0030-6053. (This species lives in the Tien Shan Mountains.)

Pikas have no economic value that I’m aware of. People who have never seen or heard one won’t likely miss them. The North American pikas won’t all die out, in fact they’ve recolonized areas on Mount St. Helens. However, to know that mountain talus fields in the West and in Asian mountains are falling silent is inexpressibly sad. To know that thousands of species of plants and animals are toast is something like the curators of the Baghdad archaeological museum must have felt when the looters arrived.

[Steve LaBonne]

Bob, if you had any clue how science works you would understand the complete laughability of an "argument" consisting of linking to one known way-way-outlier- something even a tiny amount of research on your part would confirm- writing in Opinion Journal of all places. And if you actually cared about this issue you would be busy informing yourself from readily available reputable sources rather than trolling here. (I've repeatedly suggested that you start with realclimate.org.) But I guess it takes all kinds.

[bob koepp]

Oh, I've a got a clue, alright. If you can hack it, you might take a look at Kitcher's "The Advancement of Science" for a relatively recent, well-developed account of how science works.

I'm also quite familiar with the realclimate crew. I assume you're aware that Mann (another guy with a dog in this fight) has recently taken to saying that he always intended to emphasize the uncertainties inherent in his famous hockey stick model. Funny how he started singing that line only after his modeling methodology was finally subjected to critical review (in spite of his efforts to prevent such review).

[Steve LaBonne]

This combination of misleading quotemining, and impressive-sounding but irelevant references to things you probably haven't read (and certainly not with understanding- and by the way aside from actually being a scientist I've forgotten more about the philosophy of science than you'll ever know), is typical of the creationist argumentative style. Which is wy I rightly compared you to one.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

>Oh, and 1984... to be pitied for his willful ignorance.

Bob, I've considered what you've provided. I just disagree with you. I'm sorry, but not surprised, to find that you can't handle that. I see that Darcy was right: you're simply contrarian, just offering knee-jerk contradiction to any leftists or environmentalists you meet. I've considered what you've provided, and I disagree with you. All you've spoken with here disagree with you as well. You can either insist that anyone who disagrees with you is wrong, or provide more credible evidence, or you can be a man about it and accept and face disagreement with some dignity. Your choice.

>To know that thousands of species of plants and animals are toast is something like the curators of the Baghdad archaeological museum must have felt when the looters arrived.

That's how I feel; I do believe, having looked at all evidence provided, that a large upheaval in terms of species going extinct, and crops failing because of drought or flood, will have a significant impact on the food chain (and thus, on our environment).

[Steve LaBonne]

Bob is clearly quite an egotistical fellow. He chose to encumber my email inbox with a diatribe boasting of his wonderful background in history and philosophy of science. Whatever. A little Googling reveals that he is some kind of research administrator in a hospital in Minneapolis, has a background in medical ethics, and doesn't appear to have a Ph.D. in anything, not even philosophy of science let alone any field of actual science. Why he feels so empowered to trash his betters is beyond me. But that's what's left of climate skepticism: cranks like Bob, one or two professional contrarians like Lindzen, and energy-industry flacks and their bought and paid for politicians. A scurvy crew, and they deserve one another.

I'll lay my scientific cards on the table, and state right off that I was never any great shakes as a research biologist nor am I trained in either climate science or field biology; I claim, as far as this discussion goes, only the skill of reading scientific literature (much of the climate literature, as opposed to, say, theoretical physics, is readable by someone like me becausew it depends on statistical analyses that are not unlike those used in some areas of life science and that I have the background to follow to a reasonable extent), and the kind of inside understanding of how the scientific community works(including how you know who's at the center of a field and who's way out on the periphery)that you can only gain from professional training and practice of science. My A.B (Biochemical Sciences) is from Harvard, my Ph.D. (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) from Northwestern, and I did postdoctoral training in genetics at Case Western Reserve with a distinguished developmental geneticist who is a member of the NAS. After a lackluster decade in academia with stops at the Univ. of Mississippi Medical Center, Union College (NY) and SUNY-Albany, I changed careers to forensic science (where I am still, of course, professionally concerned with evaluating the weight of evidence.) None of the above is in any way intended to blow my own horn since, as I say, I am by no means even trained in, let alone a contributor to, a directly relevant discipline. It's simply full disclosure.

My interest in global warming is simply that of a responsible citizen; as Hansen noted in the NYRB article, we've already wasted a decade thanks to the miserable failure of leadership by the US, and as a result we now find that things are going downhill much faster than all but the most alarmist dreamt of at the beginning of that period, and that we may have very little time left to take real action before extremely serious consequences become entirely unavoidable. In that context, rhetoric like Bob's is dangerously and obnoxiously irresponsible,and- yes- it makes me quite angry. It should make anyone angry who has absorbed Hansen's message.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Steve, thank you. That full disclosure will be valuable in case others read these entries, and wonder who they're dealing with.

Thank you for the link you provided upthread as well. It's impossible to shrink the contents of the link down to the size of one post, but some highlights include the assertion that there are some plant species, specifically some food crops, that still thrive under conditions of high CO2; however, to quote the link:

At the same time, associated climatic effects, such as higher temperatures, changes in rainfall and soil moisture, and increased frequencies of extreme meteorological events, could either enhance or negate potentially beneficial effects of enhanced atmospheric CO2 on crop physiology.

The rest of the article is similarly nuanced, with negatives balancing out or exceeding most of the positive effects mentioned, regarding crop yields, and surprise or uncertainty having their effects as well. With our global product distribution systems wound as tightly as they are in our day, interruption of services from one supplier can cause chaos. Since populous countries such as Bangladesh and China (the latter of which has nuclear weapons, a million-man army, and a sophisticated web of alliances based on concerns of the military, industry, commerce and energy) stand to have their crop yields adversely affected by global warming, it is of vital importance to us that we understand how global warming will affect food supplies. China has a lot of weight to throw around. Bangladesh has a population of 140 million people, and borders a regional ally, India, of crucial importance to us.

An op-ed article in the Mercury News (of which more tomorrow morning) by Senator Dianne Feinstein mentions that according to scientists, CO2 remains in the atmosphere for decades, perhaps 50 years; she also named American automobiles (that is, cars used here, not made here) and coal-burning power plants as the biggest culprits in the US, where carbon dioxide emissions are concerned. So that decade we wasted counts. Even changing our ways drastically now (and as we can see, many would rather die or be dragged kicking and screaming into change, rather than admit the truth), we are likely to have many decades of storms to ride out (perhaps literally).