Editor's note: With this article, we welcome Jennifer B to the Celsias writing team. Jennifer lives in Minnesota and holds an MS degree in Ecology/Evolutionary Biology. We look forward to many interesting posts to come.
Casual conversations around the water cooler, in the lunchroom and on the bus, are increasingly turning toward the hot topic of global warming. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon to hear an uninformed fellow argue that all the fuss about polar bears and melting ice caps is foolish. After all, what difference can one degree make?
As it turns out, one degree can make quite a difference. As average temperatures increase - even by a degree or two - optimum habitats for many organisms will change, causing them to shift or expand their territories. For example, some species will move higher up into the mountains or further towards the Poles. But in locations where there is no higher ground, or where the new territory brings intensified resource competition with other species, local losses or even global extinctions of plants and animals will occur.
The earth has already warmed at least one degree Fahrenheit in the last century, with an anticipated acceleration in warming predicted for the next one hundred years. As a result, scientists have observed a variety of shifts in plant and animal communities, generating a great deal of research investigating the impacts of warming temperatures on biodiversity. Here are a just a few recent examples:
- Triggered by increased spring temperatures, many species of Ohio flwers are blooming much earlier than they did in the past. Researchers report that one species, the mock orange bush, blooms 10 days earlier than it did in the mid-1980s.
- Multiple, consecutive warm years have triggered the reproductive success of the bark beetle, which has been ferociously feasting on trees within the Dixie National Forest in Utah. Foresters report hundreds of thousands of acres of devastated forest in the last 18 years.
- A rise in ocean temperature, associated with warming atmospheric temperatures, has caused significant coral bleaching and mortality throughout tropical waters.
- Researchers report that rising air temperatures in the Sierra Nevada mountains are exacerbating the effects of disease on populations of amphibians in this ecologically unique tropical region.
These are all very real examples of the potentially disastrous impact that a warming climate is having on organisms and ecosystems, however, it's important to remember that climate change is only one dilemma that is woven into a web of other problems. Worldwide, ecosystems are also under pressure from habitat loss, illegal wildlife trade, war, pollution, physical infrastructure, and the introduction of invasive exotic species as well as from natural environmental change, including catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina. While scientists attempt to disentangle the effects of climate change from these other causes of change, it is difficult to say the least. What scientists can predict, however, is that an anthropogenically-induced warming of our earth is only exacerbating these mounting, multidimensional pressures.
While not everyone agrees with placing the blame on human activity, the fact remains that our planet is heating up. And with impending elections in the United States, it is as important as ever to set the record straight on the observed effects of global warming.
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