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Wed 22 Jan, 2020 12:07 am
I may not be around to keep up with this thread, but I think this could be an interesting conversation.
There have been several climate change cycles which historians have recognized for quite some time. Several of these have been climate cooling events, and are identified as aridification events. Look up the 8.2 kiloyear event, the 5.9 kiloyear event and the 4.2 kiloyear event. One of the most severe was what is referred to as the Little Ice Age, which ran from about 1300 to the late 19th century (some historians date it to 1870).
In each such event, there were major, drastic changes in human society, but it is useful to keep in mind that there were drastic changes for the entire biosphere, with natural selection kicking in with a vengeance. It wold always have been a sink or swim process for a great many species living between the tropics and the poles. There would have been effects in the tropic regions, too, although less severe.
Arguments about human contribution to climate change are not relevant here. The climate is changing, and that will have effects quite different from the cooling events referred to above. Many thousands of species will be affected, nd this has been the case since the end of the last ice age.
What do you think, sports fans?
@Setanta,
True. Climate has been changing since the planet was a ball of molten rock. I recall from a few years ago that Roswell posted something I thought was significant. He said that if you dumped a pail of water up river from Niagara falls it would increase the flow, but would it be significant? I don't know.
More recently, farmerman came around to the anthropogenic view. I respect his views, if not his politics. So, I'm just repeating opinions of other members. Still, what can we discuss if "Arguments about human contribution to climate change are not relevant here"? If human activities aren't relevant we are just going to take what we get.
I haven't had my nap today. Hope I'm making sense tonight.
@roger,
You're making sense, but you're missing my point for the thread. Someone's at the door, I'll be right back with a couple of examples of what I'm getting at.
In the Russian arctic there is an aboriginal people who call themselves the Nenets. They are reindeer herders. They do an 800+ mile migration every summer to graze their herds. In 2013, melting permafrost exposed anthrax spores: one of their children died, and more than 2300 reindeer. In 2014, it was worse. Instead of early winter snow, the climate was so warm that there were heavy rains. When the typical seasonal cold finally set in, the tundra was covered with a thick sheet of ice. The reindeer could not graze, and well over 60,000 reindeer starved to death.
This is the sort of thing I'm interested in. I'm not interested in the tired old rancorous political discussions. These fluctuations of warming and cooling every couple of thousand years since the end of the last (true) ice age will have had profound effects on flora and fauna. Natural selection assures that. That is the discussion that interests me. For example, what happens to Ursus maritimus (polar bears) when the pack ice pulls away from the shores of the Arctic Ocean?
Do you get my drift here, Roger?
Thanks RP, I always approve of sound tracks in threads.
The warming ocean concerns me as much as anything else. I saw an article this week about a warm area that killed, I think, millions of sealife. And that was only in the one spot.
@edgarblythe,
Yeah, and there is a general pattern from the melting of the ice caps and glaciers, which dump large amounts of fresh water into the ocean. That kills coral polyps, and damages coral reefs, which are considered the most diverse biological areas on the planet. Coral reefs also protect coastlines from wave action and storm surges. Cheerful thread, ain't it?
I will point out that this has all happened before, but we don't have any data on the overall effect.
@Setanta,
At least in NM, we are losing our mountain side pine forests. Doesn't get cold enough, for long enough to kill the pine bark beetles.
@roger,
They have the problem in Canadia with the lodgepole pin beetles and the emerald ash borers--so it's a one-two punch at conifers and hardwoods.
In the early '80s, I lived in The Land of Enchantment. On the drive west from Los Alamos in the Bandelier forest, you would look into the pine forests on either side of the road, and see snow under the trees even in summer. Those groves didn't allow the sun to shine on the ground under them. I guess that's gone now, huh? This is a unique opportunity to see the effects of natural selection in action under the accelerant of pressure--the pressure of climate warming.
@roger,
roger wrote:
At least in NM, we are losing our mountain side pine forests. Doesn't get cold enough, for long enough to kill the pine bark beetles.
My assumption is that the climate can't keep warming indefinitely, so I wonder what changes will ultimately occur to reverse the warming trend by causing the decline of atmospheric CO2 levels.
I also assume that whatever happens to start the natural process of absorbing the CO2 will cause an overshoot that will eventually lead to a new ice age.
But how would such dramatic changes happen without affecting humans or being affected by us? I know you said you don't want to discuss human causation and consequences, but how can you even imagine the bigger climate picture without thinking about human activities and land use?
@livinglava,
Wos . . . you really don't understand climate change at all.
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
Wos . . . you really don't understand climate change at all.
When you say that, you have to say what it is that I don't understand that you do. Otherwise it could just be that you don't understand something I do.
@livinglava,
Ah, you can't beat this place for unintentional humor. I don't have to do any such thing; your ignorance is a matter of indifference to me.
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
Ah, you can't beat this place for unintentional humor. I don't have to do any such thing; your ignorance is a matter of indifference to me.
If you were indifferent you wouldn't post a response at all.
@livinglava,
If you had read the opening post, you wouldn't display such ignorance.
@Setanta,
Ive always been strongly interested in "lets see what happening to polar bears".
With the higher marine temps in the Sub Arctic latitudes, weve already seen a few major environmental pressures that would serve to stoke up natural selection in a polar bear and seal population that already have sufficient genetic variabilities to serve up some adaptations that could allow the species to survive what could be an extinction event.
Usually the rule is that the more species in a genus, the more chances for survival via adaptation.
I assume that the statistical principle of irreveribility , called Dollo's Law pertains and that full re-evolution statistically wont happen OR, if genetic variability of polar bears is such the "brown bear" genes that are turned off would be relit and the Arctus genera could be jut like the peppered moth,with selection of environmentally favorable traits but not extinction of the phenotype .
@farmerman,
That's what sparked my interest. When the climate cooled and warmed in the past, we don't know what happened. Maybe polar bears could go back to foraging and hunting on land--although that could be hard after so many generations as carnivores. When I learned about the reindeer die-off on the Yamal Peninsula in the Russian arctic, that started me thinking. I was also unaware of the pine beetle problem in New Mexico until Roger mentioned it. EB's comment about the oceans immediately made me think of the threat to corals. Now I have something to live for!
@Setanta,
Do they keep track of any population and/or physiological differences in the Polar Bear "resident population" up near Churchill (Hudson Bay)??
Since elk and Moose and musk ox , reindeer and caribou are really holdover Pleistocene megafauna, the attack of CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease) is especially intense among the southern herds of these species, as are tick infestations since the climate control on ticks isnt as intense as it once was.
One of my personal studies is the USDA "migrating agricultura zonationfor N AMerica. Certain crops that require a 6 to 8 week freeze period to "stratify the next seasons growth> are becoming stresssed and are migrating North (actually, stuff like blueberries are just dying off in the douth as are plants like rhubarb and cherries
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