13/11/2016

Climate Change Is Affecting All Life On Earth – And That’s Not Good News For Humanity

The Conversation -  | 

Researchers have found that dragonflies have become on average lighter-colored over the past half-century in response to higher temperatures. norio-nakayama/flickr, CC BY-SA
More than a dozen authors from different universities and nongovernmental organizations around the world have concluded, based on an analysis of hundreds of studies, that almost every aspect of life on Earth has been affected by climate change.
In more scientific parlance, we found in a paper published in Science that genes, species and ecosystems now show clear signs of impact. These responses to climate change include species’ genome (genetics), their shapes, colors and sizes (morphology), their abundance, where they live and how they interact with each other (distribution). The influence of climate change can now be detected on the smallest, most cryptic processes all the way up to entire communities and ecosystems.
Some species are already beginning to adapt. The color of some animals, such as butterflies, is changing because dark-colored butterflies heat up faster than light-colored butterflies, which have an edge in warmer temperatures. Salamanders in eastern North America and cold-water fish are shrinking in size because being small is more favorable when it is hot than when it is cold. In fact, there are now dozens of examples globally of cold-loving species contracting and warm-loving species expanding their ranges in response to changes in climate.
All of these changes may seem small, even trivial, but when every species is affected in different ways these changes add up quickly and entire ecosystem collapse is possible. This is not theoretical: Scientists have observed that the cold-loving kelp forests of southern Australia, Japan and the northwest coast of the U.S. have not only collapsed from warming but their reestablishment has been halted by replacement species better adapted to warmer waters.

Flood of insights from ancient flea eggs
Researchers are using many techniques, including one called resurrection ecology, to understand how species are responding to changes in climate by comparing the past to current traits of species. And a small and seemingly insignificant organism is leading the way.
One hundred years ago, a water flea (genus Daphnia), a small creature the size of a pencil tip, swam in a cold lake of the upper northeastern U.S. looking for a mate. This small female crustacean later laid a dozen or so eggs in hopes of doing what Mother Nature intended – that she reproduce.
Water flea; Daphnia barbata. photo credit: Joachim Mergeay
Her eggs are unusual in that they have a tough, hardened coat that protects them from lethal conditions such as extreme cold and droughts. These eggs have evolved to remain viable for extraordinary periods of time and so they lay on the bottom of the lake awaiting the perfect conditions to hatch.
Now fast forward a century: A researcher interested in climate change has dug up these eggs, now buried under layers of sediment that accumulated over the many years. She takes them to her lab and amazingly, they hatch, allowing her to show one thing: that individuals from the past are of a different architecture than those living in a much hotter world today. There is evidence for responses at every level from genetics to physiology and up through to community level.
By combining numerous research techniques in the field and in the lab, we now have a definitive look at the breadth of climate change impacts for this animal group. Importantly, this example offers the most comprehensive evidence of how climate change can affect all processes that govern life on Earth.

From genetics to dusty books
The study of water fleas and resurrection ecology is just one of many ways that thousands of geneticists, evolutionary scientists, ecologists and biogeographers around the world are assessing if – and how – species are responding to current climate change.
Other state-of-the-art tools include drills that can sample gases trapped several miles beneath the Antarctic ice sheet to document past climates and sophisticated submarines and hot air balloons that measure the current climate.
Warmer temperatures are already affecting some species in discernible ways. Sea turtles on dark sands, for instance, will more likely be feminine because of higher temperatures. levork/flickr, CC BY-SA
Researchers are also using modern genetic sampling to understand how climate change is influencing the genes of species, while resurrection ecology helps understand changes in physiology. Traditional approaches such as studying museum specimens are effective for documenting changes in species morphology over time.
Some rely on unique geological and physical features of the landscape to assess climate change responses. For example, dark sand beaches are hotter than light sand beaches because black color absorbs large amounts of solar radiation. This means that sea turtles breeding on dark sand beaches are more likely to be female because of a process called temperature dependent sex determination. So with higher temperatures, climate change will have an overall feminizing effect on sea turtles worldwide.
Wiping the dust off of many historical natural history volumes from the forefathers and foremothers of natural history, who first documented species distributions in the late 1800s and early 1900s, also provides invaluable insights by comparing historical species distributions to present-day distributions.
For example, Joseph Grinnell’s extensive field surveys in early 1900s California led to the study of how the range of birds there shifted based on elevation. In mountains around the world, there is overwhelming evidence that all forms of life, such as mammals, birds, butterflies and trees, are moving up towards cooler elevations as the climate warms.

How this spills over onto humanity
So what lessons can be taken from a climate-stricken nature and why should we care?
This global response occurred with just a 1 degree Celsius increase in temperature since preindustrial times. Yet the most sensible forecasts suggest we will see at least an increase of up to an additional 2-3 degrees Celsius over the next 50 to 100 years unless greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly cut.
All of this spells big trouble for humans because there is now evidence that the same disruptions documented in nature are also occurring in the resources that we rely on such as crops, livestock, timber and fisheries. This is because these systems that humans rely on are governed by the same ecological principles that govern the natural world.
Examples include reduced crop and fruit yields, increased consumption of crops and timber by pests and shifts in the distribution of fisheries. Other potential results include the decline of plant-pollinator networks and pollination services from bees.
Bleached coral, a result of higher acidity in the oceans from absorbing CO2. Corals provide valuable services to people who rely on healthy fisheries for food. Oregon State University, CC BY-SA
Further impacts on our health could stem from declines in natural systems such as coral reefs and mangroves, which provide natural defense to storm surges, expanding or new disease vectors and a redistribution of suitable farmland. All of this means an increasingly unpredictable future for humans.
This research has strong implications for global climate change agreements, which aim to keep total warming to 1.5C. If humanity wants our natural systems to keep delivering the nature-based services we rely so heavily on, now is not the time for nations like the U.S. to step away from global climate change commitments. Indeed, if this research tells us anything it is absolutely necessary for all nations to up their efforts.
Humans need to do what nature is trying to do: recognize that change is upon us and adapt our behavior in ways that limit serious, long-term consequences.

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Climate Experts Weigh in on Trump’s Election Win

Climate Central - 

The election of Donald Trump as the nation’s next president spurred celebration in some quarters and dismay in others, including among those concerned about the steady warming of the planet.
The unrestrained emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases have altered the Earth’s climate, raising sea levels, impacting ecosystems, and increasingly the likelihood of extreme weather. In terms of numbers, the world’s temperature has risen by more than 1°F since 1900 and 2016 is expected to be the hottest year on record.
Donald Trump arriving at his election night rally at the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan. Credit: REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
Though climate change was not a major topic in much election coverage — there were no questions on it during the three presidential debates — many climate scientists and policy advocates supported Clinton. They expected that she would continue policies enacted by the Obama administration, such as the Clean Power Plan and the signing of international agreements to limit warming.
Trumps comments on climate change have included calling it a hoax and warning that Environmental Protection Agency policies are costing the country jobs, though he has talked about the importance of maintaining clean air and water. He has suggested he will pull out of the landmark Paris agreement and scuttle the Clean Power Plan, as well as boost the domestic coal and oil industries.
While the U.S. is only one country, it is a linchpin to the viability of international agreements and to moving the needle on limiting warming.
In response to Tuesday’s landmark election, Climate Central reached out to climate, energy and policy researchers to see how they think a Trump presidency will impact climate research and efforts to limit future warming and mitigate what has already happened. We also asked what they think climate scientists should be doing in the coming weeks, months and years, including what they may personally be doing. Their answers have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity:

Jennifer Francis, sea ice researcher at Rutgers University: If President Trump acts on statements he made during the campaign, we are likely to see any federal efforts to curtail fossil fuel burning go up in smoke. I fear that funding for any scientific research related to the environment will be further cut by an unrestrained science-phobic Congress​, even as we become ever more confident of the myriad ways that climate change is costing the U.S. economy billions of dollars, contributing to food and international insecurity, and disrupting daily life. As an optimist, I hope that a President Trump will become more open-minded than the candidate Trump and allow facts to guide his presidential decisions. I also hope that as president he will take his grandchildren to visit our great national parks and see the beauty that will be destroyed if he ignores those facts.
Mother Nature did her share to influence this election by dishing up a smorgasbord of record-breaking heat, flooding, drought, and storms — yet, climate change was a non-issue. We know it's adversely affecting wildlife, agriculture, fisheries, outdoor sports, transportation, you name it — so clearly scientists of all stripes need to tell this story better. I will be redoubling my efforts to help people recognize impacts of climate change on their own lives, and also see the solutions that must happen to reduce the mess we leave for our children.

Jacquelyn Gill, paleoecologist at the University of Maine: We have just elected the only climate denying president in the free world, with a Young Earth Creationist vice president. It's hard to predict exactly how this will play out in terms of impacts to combat and mitigate against climate change, but one of the most immediate threats will be to the funding and agencies that support climate change research. Trump has gone on the record stating he'd cut funding for climate science, which will directly jeopardize ongoing efforts to understand how the climate system works, how to predict the impacts of climate change, and what the effective strategies for mitigation should be.
I worry that Trump's election will only rejuvenate the ongoing assault on climate scientists, both in terms of internet harassment and in Congress. In my opinion, scientists should be taking steps to protect the security of their online communications, their data, and their personal information. We should be supporting efforts like the Climate Legal Defense Fund. We should be careful about bringing new students into our labs while the future of science funding is so uncertain. We should be putting communication networks in place, reaching out to grant program officers, university administrators, and legislators, and doing what we can to advocate for the importance of our research and academic freedom at every level.
And even though it's scary, we need to be reaching out to the public, now more than ever. We need to find our own outreach communities and connect with those people, and to undertake efforts to humanize climate science. And we need to work with the folks who aren't scientists who are on the ground, on the front lines of climate change and climate justice, to make sure that we amplify their voices and pitch in where we can. This is going to be especially crucial for those of us who are in the most protected groups — white men especially.

Katharine Hayhoe, climate modeler at Texas Tech University: I work with cities, states, and provinces — helping them prepare for a changing climate, building resilience to the impacts we can't avoid, cutting carbon to reduce the impacts we can avoid. Cities like Washington, D.C., Chicago, and even tiny Georgetown, Texas, are at the forefront of this global movement. A president hostile to climate policy may be able to affect federal and even international action: but they can't stop cities and that's where the momentum is. That's what gives me hope.

Andrew Hoffman, sustainable development expert at the University of Michigan: Trump's election throws the future of environmental policy, both in the U.S. and globally, into confusion.  His stated and tweeted positions on climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Paris climate accord, the Clean Power Plan and many other related issues suggest that the future of much of the programs and policies of the past administration, indeed many from administrations going back to President Nixon's formation of the EPA, are in question. That said, Trump's positions have been uneven (for example, while deriding some environmental policies, he has endorsed programs by the National Wildlife Federation to protect the Great Lakes; announcing "let's make the Great Lakes great again") and some seem to have been hastily announced (such as his tweet that climate change is a Chinese plot). Let's wait and see how his positions solidify in the coming days of his administration. One aspect of Trump's campaign has been his unpredictability.
I would also add that I wrote this essay to warn that he may be following a similar path that Reagan started down and had to stop. Reagan tried to stop the actions of the EPA and faced a latent interest among the general public on the environment that was aroused by his disregard for environmental policies.
The record-hot months of 2016 clearly stand out against the past 137 years. 
Mark Jacobson, clean energy researcher at Stanford: I'm most concerned with how a Trump presidency will affect solutions to climate change, air pollution, and energy security. Fortunately, the cost of wind and solar are very low now and dropping still, and clean-energy technologies and startups are widespread, so we have momentum. At the state level, many states are moving to clean, renewable energy. It is still in the economic interest of Republicans and Democrats to expand clean, renewable energy. In fact, the five states with the highest fraction of electricity from wind are all "red" states that voted for Trump. Those countries that move faster toward clean, renewable energy will create more jobs, develop their economies faster, become more energy independent, reduce catastrophic risk, including terrorism, associated with centralized plants, and live healthier and longer, so this should be an incentive to keep moving in the right direction. Since most efforts to solve the problems have been at the state level over the past four years in any case (e.g., California, New York, and even inadvertently in Iowa and South Dakota with their expansion of wind), I am confident state and local steps can continue.
I will continue to do what I do, namely try to understand and solve the problems. There is nothing that an unsupportive president can do to stop my efforts.

Ralph Keeling, director of the CO2 program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography: It's not easy to formulate responses at this point. It's clearly too early to tell what Trump will do to change the landscape on climate mitigation. For now we will be waiting to see how much his policies will be guided by the sometimes extreme views that guided his campaign — such as being in denial of the climate problem. It's certainly easier to be in denial from the sidelines than from being in the driver's seat, so there's hope that a more reasoned approach will follow.
The main step for the climate scientists is to keep working on the science. If we end up on a slower track on mitigating climate change, this just means we need a faster track on adaptation and preparedness. There's a lot on the plate of the scientists regardless.

Michael Mann, paleoclimate researcher at Penn State: A Trump presidency might be game over for the climate. In other words, it might make it impossible to stabilize planetary warming below dangerous (i.e. greater than 2°C) levels. If Trump makes good on his campaign promises and pulls out of the Paris Treaty, it is difficult to see a path forward to keeping warming below dangerous levels.
It is time for introspection and contemplation. I’m still in the process of letting this sink in.

Laura Tam, sustainable development policy director at SPUR: As a policy analyst and advocate for local climate action, I can tell you that the urgency of sub-nationals and cities to take action to go fossil-free is even more important, and we should set up our systems to do this without the federal government, and perhaps in spite of it. The demonstration of the viability of 100 percent renewables for all energy needs can happen here in California and when we demonstrate the economic and environmental superiority of this model, the nation will not be long to follow. It will become inevitable. A Trump presidency will make local and state action even more urgent.

David Titley, climate and weather risk researcher at Penn State: Many black swans have taken flight this year. One thing science teaches you is that systems frequently revert to the mean. So, as dark as everything looks at this moment for fixing our climate, we need to have hope that we won't realize the worst case. If there is a silver lining it's that Trump does not seem bound by whatever he has said previously. So perhaps he will see the wisdom or at least self-interest, in investing in non-carbon, U.S.-produced, energy.
The climate community has a huge challenge ahead, to frame this issue in a way that will resonate with the likely president-elect. It may not be possible but it would be negligent to not even try.

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‘There’s No Plan B’: Climate Change Scientists Fear Consequence Of Trump Victory

The Guardian - 

Activists and scientists at UN climate talks in Marrakech now fear a change in US policy
Delegates at the UN Climate Change Conference 2016 in Marrakech were left in shock and disbelief. Photograph: Youssef Boudlal/Reuters
As  news of Donald Trump’s victory reached Marrakech on Wednesday, the many thousands of diplomats, activists, youth and business groups gathered in the city for the UN’s annual climate conference were left in shock and disbelief that the US could elect a climate-change denier as president.
Some of the younger activists were in tears. “My heart is absolutely broken at the election of Trump,” said Becky Chung, a delegate for youth advocacy group SustainUS from California.
“We will see a rising-up of people’s movements committed to mass civil disobedience to keep fossil fuels in the ground. The next four years will be critical. We have to get to zero emissions by 2050,” she said.
The delegates from nearly 200 countries, many of whom had spent 20 years negotiating the complex Paris agreement which aims to limit global warming to a 1.5°C rise, were tightlipped but clearly nervous. The US delegation went into a huddle, meetings were cancelled and talk centred on whether Trump would fulfil his often-repeated threat to withdraw the US from the UN’s Paris Agreement – blitzing decades of fraught but ultimately successful global negotiations.
“No one thought this could happen. Everyone here is in shock,” said Bangladeshi scientist and diplomat Saleemul Huq. “No one had anticipated this result and, hence, there was no plan B. We will have to think about what happens next.”
Morocco’s minister of foreign affairs, Salaheddine Mezouar, the meeting’s president, put on a brave face. “We are convinced that all parties will respect their commitments and stay the course in this collective effort,” he said.
But few people agreed with him because Trump has consistently denied 40 years of climate science – and he claims that manmade global warming is a Chinese hoax. Ditching the Paris treaty, he has said, is his number one environmental priority.
Withdrawal from the treaty, which was crafted over years by US diplomats, often against developing countries’ wills, would take four years to complete and would outrage world opinion. Many delegates in Marrakech privately think it more likely that a new US administration would choose to ignore it. Because the Paris treaty is voluntary, the US would face global opprobrium, but no sanctions or fines.
American students protest outside the UN climate talks in reaction to Trump’s victory. Photograph: Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images
Instead of reducing US emissions by a quarter to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025, as the US has pledged, Trump would support US coal, gas and fracking and halt payments aimed to help developing countries adapt to rising sea levels and temperatures. The result would be to increase US emissions, set back attempts to hold temperatures to a 2°C rise by years and, say business and activists, put a brake on the world’s renewable energy industries and consign poor countries to deeper poverty.
The UN, privately rattled but publicly calm in Marrakech, fervently hopes that the reality of power, diplomatic pressure and business self-interest will keep Trump in the fold. At stake, say officials, is not just the treaty but the whole UN system, which is based on consensus between countries.
Erik Solheim, head of the UN environment programme, told the Observer that Trump’s pragmatism and business sense was likely to score over ideology. “It’s clear there is uncertainty because of some of the statements made before the election. But I am certain we have crossed the Rubicon. There is no way back on climate change,” he said.
Should the US leave the treaty, Solheim says that some of the biggest losers would be America’s working people. “They would lose out on all the new green jobs. It would be a huge lost opportunity for the US people. The thinking that climate is a cost is wrong. It is a business opportunity,” he said.
Other diplomats and politicians claim that the US would lose important allies, if it chose to become the world’s only climate rogue nation. “The signal of Trump for climate and energy policy internationally is about as bad as it could get. Theresa May has to ask that before he withdraws from any UN agreements, he consults and discusses this with allies,” said Sir Edward Davey, Britain’s energy secretary from 2012-15. “Trump has to acknowledge the reality of climate change. He has a responsibility as president-elect now,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The deep fear in Marrakech is that US opposition to the Paris agreement would signal to other countries that they need not meet their voluntary pledges, with the result that global emissions would soar and climate change could become unstoppable.
Withdrawal would also undermine relations with China. “Climate co-operation between the US and China will need a new strategy with new priorities and highlights,” said Zou Ji, deputy director general of China’s national centre for climate change strategy.
Developing countries were particularly nervous last week because Trump has also vowed to stop contributions to the Green Climate Fund, set up by the UN to distribute an eventual $100bn a year to help them reduce emissions and adapt their infrastructure to climate change. The US, which is expected to be the biggest contributor to the fund, has pledged $4bn over four years.
Greenpeace international co-directors Jennifer Morgan and Bunny McDiarmid said: “We will not give up. We will work even harder and invite people to join this powerful movement. The stakes for current and future generations are too high and time is too short.”
As the Marrakech meeting prepared to enter its second week, with the arrival of ministers from 200 countries, , Jean Su of the US Center for Biological Diversity sought to quell fears: “I do believe that climate progress will not crash and burn because of one single man who was elected yesterday …. One single man cannot ruin a whole 20 years of progress on climate change.”
Michael Brune, director of the Sierra Club, the US’s largest environment group, was adamant. “It would be very difficult for Trump to remove the US from the Paris agreement. If he tries to... he will run headlong into an organised mass of people who will fight him in the courts, in the marketplace, and in the streets.”

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