Sunday, March 18, 2012

We ain't seen nothing yet


A short video examining the impacts of climate change on wild species with commentary from Nobel laureate Camille Parmesan. Winter is shrinking and the critters are on the move.
H/T Michael.

3 comments:

Sam Charles Norton said...

Wonderful testimony about how the natural world naturally adapts to natural changes ;)

byron smith said...

I can only assume you watched a different video.

"So what we're seeing is lots of change and those species that we would expect to be most sensitive to global warming are showing declines and contractions in the amount of area in which they can actually live in as climate shifts around the globe. The impacts of that are mainly going to be seen in another 20-40 years. [...] We're just starting to see the tip of the iceberg. We're seeing the tip of the icebergs. We're seeing the most sensitive species and the most sensitive spaces, like the Arctic, showing these massive losses and massive declines"

Shifting locations: not all species are able to move polewards or upwards in location, particularly (a) at the poles (esp NH), (b) at the tops of mountains, (c) in places where natural ecosystems are highly fragmented by human developments which put boundaries on how far and/or fast species migration can occur.

Timing of annual events: unfortunately, these are not synchronised, so birds might be arriving at locations where the insects haven't yet come out, or vice versa.

These are serious ecological changes that threaten very significant proportions of all species with extinction in the coming years, especially as they arriving in conjunction with so many other threats to biodiversity.

I did see your smiley face but I chose to ignore it as this is no laughing matter.

byron smith said...

HuffPo: Plants reacting faster than expected to changes.