changing climate

Butterflies And Moths In A Changing World | Earth Wise

July 20, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Extinction is a part of life. Plant and animal species disappear all the time. In fact, approximately 98% of all the organisms that have ever existed on planet earth are now extinct. Earth’s so-called ‘normal’ rate of extinction is thought to be somewhere between 0.1 and 1 species per 10,000 species per 100 years.

But anthropogenic climate change is bringing about rapid change in nature. Put more simply, human activity is killing nature at an unprecedented rate. According to many scientists, the earth’s sixth mass extinction has already begun. Mass extinctions are defined as times when the Earth loses more than 75% of its species in a geologically short interval.

The changing climate puts immense pressure on species for change. According to a new study by researchers from the University of Helsinki and the Finnish Environment Institute, the few butterfly and moth species capable of adjusting to the changing climate by moving up their flight period and moving further north have fared the best.

In Finland, researchers compared temporal shifts in the flight period and spatial shifts in the northern range boundary of 289 moth and butterfly species, as well as changes in abundance over a roughly 20-year period.

They found that about 45% of species that either moved northward or advanced their flight period fared much better than the roughly 40% of species that did not respond in either way. On average, the populations of these poorly responding species declined. But the 15% of species that did both had the largest increase in abundance.

The ability to adapt to a changing climate is going to be vital for species survival.

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Butterflies and moths have difficulty adjusting to a rapidly changing climate

What is mass extinction and are we facing a sixth one?

Photo, posted August 16, 2017, courtesy of Tero Laakso via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Radar Satellites And Hazard Mitigation | Earth Wise

May 26, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Scientists have concluded that the changing climate is primarily the result of increased human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Some of the effects of global climate change include melting glaciers, warming oceans, intensifying storms, and rising seas.

Another consequence of global climate change is natural disasters like floods and wildfires. Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires and increasing the odds of record-breaking floods in many parts of the United States and all around the world.

As a result, scientists in Australia have turned to technology for better assistance in keeping tabs on these climate change-driven natural disasters. Researchers from Curtin University in Perth, Australia have found that satellites can improve the ability to detect, monitor, prepare for, and withstand natural disasters, including floods, wildfires, and earthquakes.

The research team used Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, which was acquired by the European Space Agency Sentinel-1 satellite. The researchers also used data acquired by other satellites to evaluate these Australia-specific case studies.

According to the researchers, SAR data provides remote monitoring capabilities of Earth’s surface around the clock and in all weather, which is something that traditional optical Earth Observation (EO) imagery cannot do. The ability to function through fog, clouds, rainfall, and smoke is what makes SAR so valuable.

The research team says that the data can be used to improve how people track and respond to natural disasters, by precisely mapping topography, tracking movements of the ground, and mapping damage to infrastructure.

As the climate continues to change, the ability to mitigate hazards like floods and wildfires will be increasingly important.

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Radar satellites can better protect against bushfires and floods

Photo, posted May 11, 2007, courtesy of Bert Knottenbeld via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Helping Corals With Beneficial Bacteria | Earth Wise

March 31, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A group of researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia is exploring a novel technology to improve the health of corals. Around the globe, corals are being stressed by pathogens, toxins, and warming waters leading to widespread bleaching events.

The new idea is to introduce beneficial bacteria to the corals, thereby boosting the strength and resilience of their symbiotic partners. The concept is akin to the use of probiotics in plant science. Corals rely on bacterial and algal symbionts to provide nutrients, energy (through photosynthesis), toxin regulation, and protection against pathogens.

The researchers selected bacteria that are naturally symbiotic to specific coral species on reefs in the Red Sea, ensuring that no alien bacteria are accidentally introduced. A probiotic cocktail comprising six bacteria strains was used in a laboratory setting. Results in the lab have been promising so far, as they have observed dynamic and metabolic alterations to the corals that boosted their chances of survival under heat stress.

Success in the lab will need to be translated to success in the open oceans, which is challenging. Scaling up and seeding whole reefs might involve robots and artificial intelligence in order to deliver probiotics either into sediments or directly onto corals.

The use of beneficial microorganisms is not the solution to the global destruction of coral reefs. Only worldwide CO₂ mitigation can ultimately accomplish that. But the probiotic approach might buy corals some time as they deal with shifting environmental pressures and try to adapt to a changing world.

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Microbiome boost may help corals resist bleaching

Photo, posted March 18, 2018, courtesy of Steven dos Remedios via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Climate Change And The Coronavirus | Earth Wise

March 19, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It’s no secret that our planet is heating up. Scientists have concluded that the changing climate is primarily the result of increased human-caused (or anthropogenic) greenhouse gas emissions. Some of the effects of global climate change include thawing permafrost, warming oceans, intensifying storms and wildfires, and rising seas.

In southern China, the surge in greenhouse gas emissions over the past century has driven the growth of forest habitat favored by bats, leading to the creation of a hotspot for bat-borne coronaviruses in that region.

According to a new study by researchers from the University of Cambridge in the UK, climate change could have played a direct role in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study, which was recently published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, revealed large-scale changes in the type of vegetation in the southern Chinese Yunnan province over the last century, as well as in the adjacent regions of Myanmar and Laos. Increases in temperature, sunlight, atmospheric carbon dioxide and other climatic changes have transformed natural habitats from tropical shrubland to tropical savannah and deciduous woodland. These changes have created ideal habitats for many bat species that predominantly live in forests.

According to the study, an additional 40 bat species moved into Yunnan province over the past century. This is the region where genetic data suggests SARS-CoV-2 may have arisen. Each bat species harbors an average of 2.7 coronaviruses.

The researchers urge policymakers to acknowledge the role that climate change plays in outbreaks of viral diseases and to work together to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

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Climate change may have driven the emergence of SARS-CoV-2

Photo, posted July 21, 2013, courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Ann Froschauer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Genetic Variation And Survivability | Earth Wise

January 21, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A massive but unintended experiment in animal conservation has revealed an unexpected result. Thousands of desert tortoises moved to a translocation site in Nevada had a greater chance of surviving if they had lots of genetic variation.

From 1997 to 2014, over 9,000 Mojave desert tortoises were moved to a 39-square-mile translocation site in the Ivanpah Valley. The tortoises were either abandoned pets or were displaced by developments in suburban Las Vegas and by solar farms in the desert.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service took blood samples to screen for diseases and marked each animal before releasing them into the site, enabling them to be tracked in later surveys.

When the researchers compared tortoises that lived or died over the same time period after being relocated to the site, they found that survivors averaged 23% greater heterozygosity than those that perished. Heterozygosity is a measure of genetic variation. Like most organisms, tortoises have two copies of their entire genome, with one from each parent. The more those copies differ from each other, the higher the organism’s heterozygosity.

Researchers are not really sure why greater genetic variation is linked to survival rates. Potentially, individuals with higher heterozygosity have more genomic flexibility. It is the case that tortoises with more genetic variation have a better chance of having at least one copy of a gene that works really well in stressful or new environments.

Human activity and the changing climate are increasing the need to relocate plants and animals. Often the chances for success in doing this are not good, so anything we can learn about things that increase the chances for survival can be very important.

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UCLA study of threatened desert tortoises offers new conservation strategy

Photo, posted August 23, 2016, courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management California via Flickr. Photo by Dana Wilson, BLM.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Record Antarctic Temperature | Earth Wise

March 5, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It is still early in the year, but extreme weather events are already piling up. January was the warmest month on record globally and there have been many records shattered in Europe and Asia. A number of places in Eastern Europe, including parts of Russia, have seen temperatures 12 to 13 degrees above average.

While the warming of the Arctic has been in the news with increasing frequency, the Antarctic is also seeing rising temperatures and is one of the fastest-warming regions in the world.

On February 6th, Esperanza Base along Antarctica’s Trinity Peninsula measured a temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the highest temperature ever recorded on that continent. This rather balmy temperature narrowly beat out the previous record of 63.5 degrees, which occurred in March of 2015.

This one-time reading is certainly anomalous, and scientists say it is associated with a ridge of high pressure that was lingering over the region for several days. Local wind conditions led to additional warming.

However, the conditions leading to record-breaking high temperatures are not one-time anomalous events. Over the past 50 years, temperatures in the Antarctic have surged by an extraordinary 5 degrees in response to the Earth’s rapidly warming climate. A rise of five degrees in day-to-day weather is no big deal. A five-degree rise in a region’s average temperature is enormous.

About 87% of the glaciers along the west coast of Antarctica’s Trinity Peninsula have retreated over that 50-year period, most of which doing so during just the past 12 years.

Some researchers claim that the new temperature record is an extreme event that doesn’t tell us anything about the changing climate. Many others are convinced that there will be many more high temperature records to follow.

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Antarctica just hit 65 degrees, its warmest temperature ever recorded

Photo, posted February 24, 2019, courtesy of Mike via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Displaced By Extreme Weather

November 11, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre is the world’s authoritative source of data and analysis on internal displacement. Internal displacement refers to people being forced to flee their homes or places of habitual residence but who remain within their country’s borders. Such displacements can be the result of conflict, violence, development projects, natural disasters, or climate change. As of the end of 2018, over 41 million people were living in internal displacement because of conflict and violence alone.

This year, natural disasters are causing a record number of internal displacements. In the first half of the year, 7 million people were displaced by disasters, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all the internal displacements worldwide. The IDMC estimates that this number could hit 22 million by the end of the year.

The vast majority of displacement has been associated with storms and floods. Cyclone Fani alone in May displaced more than 3.4 million people in India and Bangladesh. In March, Cyclone Idai displaced 617,000 people in Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. In total, 950 extreme weather events in 102 countries and territories displaced 7 million people from January to June.

Technically speaking, internally displaced people are not considered to be refugees because they remain in their home countries. But the growing millions of people represent a global crisis that continues to worsen with the changing climate. The international community cannot ignore the plight of these people. Governments around the world have to redouble their efforts to protect and assist their displaced citizens as well as to invest in sustainable development and climate change adaptation.

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Extreme Weather Displaced 7 Million People in First Half of 2019

Photo, posted August 5, 2012, courtesy of the U.S. Embassy, Jakarta via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Climate Change And The Polar Vortex

February 20, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

This winter has seen some brutally-cold weather in many places, some of it record-breaking. Predictably, some climate-change deniers point to this as evidence that the climate is not warming at all. They are quite wrong.

For starters, it is essential to understand the difference between climate and weather. Climate is the average weather patterns in a region over extended periods of time. Weather is the short-term fluctuations in temperature, precipitation, barometric pressure, wind, and so forth. There can be extremes in weather of many types in a given climate region including very cold weather in a warming climate.

The recent cold weather events in the U.S. stem from the flow of Arctic air into southern regions. Such flows are impacted dramatically by the behavior of the jet stream. These high-altitude east-to-west winds are driven by temperature differences between cold arctic air and warm tropical air and play a huge role in our weather.

The Arctic has seen extremely unusual warming due to the changing climate, weakening and fracturing the polar vortex, which is a persistent low-pressure area near the pole. The changing air flow from the Arctic causes the jet stream to take wild swings. When it swings further south, it causes cold air to reach farther south. These swings tend to hang around for a while, leading to extended periods of cold weather in the winter and, actually, extended periods of warm weather or even droughts in the summer. Studies have predicted that extreme, deadly weather events could increase by as much as fifty percent by 2100.

As more Arctic air flows into southern regions, North America can expect to see harsher winters. The warming climate doesn’t always lead to warmer weather.

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