Map shows how climate change will shift species

by Alan Boyle on August 26, 2016 at 4:08 pm

A visualization shows the likely routes that would be taken by mammals (pink), birds (blue) and amphibians (yellow) as they move northward in response to climate change. (Credit: Mapbox / OpenStreetMap / Migrations in Motion / Nature Conservancy)

A University of Washington professor’s research into climate-caused migrations has been transformed into a hypnotic map of the Americas that gets the message across.

The animated map, titled “Migrations in Motion,” shows the trajectories that species are expected to take in response to the warming trend that’s likely to unfold over the course of the coming decades.

“One of the nice things about the map is that it gives you a look at the main effects of climate change for animals: that species are going to move around,” UW ecologist Joshua Lawler told GeekWire.

Three years ago, Lawler and his colleagues published a study in Ecology Letters that laid out the likely impact of rising temperatures on migration patterns for nearly 3,000 species.

The flowing lines represent the movement of multiple species, rather than an individual species or animal. Pink lines represent mammals, blue is for birds, and yellow is for amphibians. The Appalachian migration highway stands out clearly, while the flow in the western United States is more widely distributed.

“In the West, there’s a lot more public land, so in general there are more opportunities for species to move through the west than through the east,” Lawler explained. It’s also easier for species to move to higher elevations in order to cope with a warming trend.

In the future, Lawler and his colleagues plan to produce a higher-resolution map of expected migration patterns, particularly for the western United States, and translate that into a plan to clear wider paths for species migration.

Currently, only about 41 percent of U.S. natural land area is connected enough to facilitate species shifts in a warming world, the researchers said in a paper published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To remedy that situation, they suggest tearing down fences, adjusting the routes of pipelines and power lines, and building overpasses and underpasses to help wildlife move across major roadways.

Lawler hopes maps like “Migrations in Motion” will help policymakers as well as the general public see the future unfold before their very eyes. “It was shocking to see these features emerge so clearly,” he said in a news release.

Learn more about “Migrations in Motion” on the Nature Conservancy’s blog.

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GeekWire aerospace and science editor Alan Boyle is an award-winning science writer and veteran space reporter. Formerly of NBCNews.com, he is the author of “The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference.” Follow him via CosmicLog.com, on Twitter @b0yle, and on Facebook and Google+.

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Human-induced climate change began earlier than previously thought | Environment | The Guardian

The first signs of warming from the rise in greenhouse gases which came hand-in-hand with the Industrial Revolution appear as early as 1830. Photograph: Print Collector/Getty Images

Ian Sample Science editor

Signs of warming appear as early as 1830 say researchers, whose analysis will help build accurate baseline of temperature before influence of human activitySigns of warming appear as early as 1830 say researchers, whose analysis will help build accurate baseline of temperature before influence of human Wednesday 24 August 2016 13.23 EDT

Signs of warming appear as early as 1830 say researchers, whose analysis will help build accurate baseline of temperature before influence of human activity

Continents and oceans in the northern hemisphere began to warm with industrial-era fossil fuel emissions nearly 200 years ago, pushing back the origins of human-induced climate change to the mid-19th century.

The first signs of warming from the rise in greenhouse gases which came hand-in-hand with the Industrial Revolution appear as early as 1830 in the tropical oceans and the Arctic, meaning that climate change witnessed today began about 180 years ago.

Researchers in Australia found evidence for the early onset of warming after trawling through 500 years of data on tree rings, corals and ice cores that together form a natural archive of Earth’s historical temperatures.

Temperature trends for the continents and tropical oceans over the last 500 years. Credit: Abram et al.

Much of what is known about Earth’s climate history is based on instruments that have monitored temperatures from the 1880s onwards. But while these capture the changing conditions seen in the 20th century, they miss the start of the warming trend.

“A lot is known about the climate record for the time when we have instrumental records,” said Nerilie Abram, a climate scientist at the Australian National University. “We wanted to look at whether these records give us the full picture.”

…(read more).

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Vijay Prashad: Hillary Clinton Shows Dangerous Tendency to Go to War No Matter the Consequences

Democracy Now!

Published on Aug 26, 2016

http://democracynow.org – In our extended interview with scholar Vijay Prashad, he discusses the U.S. presidential election and notes that while President Obama was reticent, then-Secretary of State “Hillary Clinton led the charge against Libya. This shows, to my mind, a profound dangerous tendency to go into wars overseas, damn the consequences. If you’re looking at this from outside the United States, there’s a real reason to be terrified.”

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“Cataclysmic Carousel of Greed”: Oscar-Winning Actress Emma Thompson on Oil Drilling in Arctic

Democracy Now!

Published on Aug 26, 2016
http://democracynow.org – Just back from a trip to the Arctic aboard the Greenpeace ship the Arctic Sunrise, celebrated British actress Emma Thompson joins us to talk about visiting the Canadian town of Clyde River, which has been leading efforts against the oil industry blasting the Arctic in its search for oil and gas. Two years ago, Thompson joined another Greenpeace expedition to protest drilling in the Arctic and to research the impact climate change has already had on the region.

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Surface water shifting around the Earth – BBC News

By Rebecca Morelle Science Correspondent, BBC News
25 August 2016

Scientists have used satellite images to study how the water on the Earth’s surface has changed over 30 years.

They found that 115,000 sq km (44,000 sq miles) of land is now covered in water and 173,000 sq km (67,000 sq miles) of water has now become land.

The largest increase in water has been on the Tibetan Plateau, while the Aral Sea has been the biggest conversion of water to land.

The team said many coastal areas have also changed significantly.

The research, carried out by the Deltares Research Institute in the Netherlands, is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

…(read more).

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