Present Danger of Global Warming

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill. -Helen Keller

<>Deaths due to climate change (updated May 15, 2007)
Increasing Storms and Floods
Weather-Related Natural Disasters 
Killer Heat Waves
Islands are Endangered by Rising Seas
Coral Bleaching
The Trend to Dead Zones in Oceans updated March 1, 2008<>
<>Decline in Antarctic Krill 
Severe Diseases Caused by Climate Change
Forest's Enemy, Beetles
Threat to Animals 
Coastal Flooding
Wildfires Increasing
Warming Ocean Waters Kills Plankton
The Danger to Birds
Australia may be facing a permanent drought
Besides global warming, here's what fossil fuel dependency gives us
 

Deaths Due to Climate Change
A study, by scientists at the World Health Organization (WHO) determined that 154,000 people die every year from the effects of global warming, from malaria to malnutrition, children in developing nations seemingly the most vulnerable. These numbers could almost double by 2020.

"We estimate that climate change may already be causing in the region of 154,000 deaths...a year," Professor Andrew Haines of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told a climate change conference in Moscow. Haines said the study suggested climate change could "bring some health benefits, such as lower cold-related mortality and greater crop yields in temperate zones, but these will be greatly outweighed by increased rates of other diseases." Haines mentioned that small shifts in temperatures, for instance, could extend the range of mosquitoes that spread malaria. Water supplies could be contaminated by floods, for instance, which could also wash away crops. (The World Health Report 2002: Reducing Risks and Promoting Healthy Life, Chapter 4, Identifying Major Risks to Health, p.26)  (Also See Planet Ark Story) Also Killer Heat Waves & WHO Website: Climate Change and Human Health - Risks and Responses

Increasing Storms and Floods
Dr. Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center (NOAA), says that global warming has produced an increase in precipitation during the 20th century, mostly in the form of heavy rainstorms, little in moderate, beneficial rainstorms. Thomas Karl also reports that recent decades have produced a 20% increase in blizzards and heavy rainstorms in the U.S. "Hundred-year events are become more frequent now," notes Karl. In a report issued in November, 1999 the Britain's Meteorological Office warned that flooding in Asia and Southeast Asia would increase more than ninefold over the coming decades. Floods are already increasing worldwide. The year 1998 was the worst on record, with 96 floods in 55 countries.

Scientists are saying that global warming is causing early snowmelts. During the month of December 1996 and the first week of January 1997 unusually warm weather caused an early snowmelt that resulted in record flooding in parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada and Montana. These floods forced about 500,000 people to leave their homes. In California alone state officials estimated flood damage to homes and businesses at $1.6 billion. [31]

Back to Top of Page
  Some References to News Sources May Have Lost Link
Weather-Related Natural Disasters
On November 28, 1998 the San Francisco Chronicle ran an Associated Press article reporting that dollar damages from weather-related natural disasters (floods, storms, droughts, fires) worldwide for 1998 totaled $89 billion. (The final figure for 1998 was to be $93 billion.) Total damages for the entire decade of the 1980's were $83 billion (this is the inflation-adjusted figure; actual figure was $54 billion). Damage totals for the 1990's soared above $340 billion, a 300% increase over the 1980's.

Killer Heat Waves
In June, 2003, 1700 people died during a heat wave that hit India, while 35,000 Europeans died in a heat wave the following August.

In July, 1999 more than 250 people died from an unrelenting heat wave that seared the eastern U.S.  Temperatures climbed above 110 degrees Fahrenheit across the Midwest, with Chicago recording a record 119 degrees.

It was July, 1995 when more than 1000 people died from heat-related causes in a heat wave in the midwest, over 700 of whom died in Chicago, 85 died in Milwaukee.

"High temperatures are likely to become more extreme, and because night temperatures will increase by at least as much as daytime temperatures, heat waves will become more serious," says Dr. Thomas Karl,  at the National Climatic Data Center. [5]  

Back to Top of Page
 Some References to News Sources May Have Lost Link

Islands are Endangered by Rising Seas

Back to Top of Page
 Some References to News Sources May Have Lost Link
Coral Bleaching
Although coral reefs cover less than 0.2% of the ocean's area, they contain 25% of marine fish species (Roberts et al., 1998).  See State Department Web Site. An example of coral reef biodiversity are the reefs of the Florida Keys, which sustain 500 species of fish, more than 1700 species of mollusks, five species of sea turtles, and hundreds of species of sponges. [124]

**************
Devastating loss of coral in the Caribbean - March, 2006
In March, 2006 researchers discovered devastating loss of coral in the Caribbean off Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. "It's an unprecedented die-off," said National Park Service fisheries biologist Jeff Miller, who last week checked 40 official monitoring stations in the Virgin Islands. "The mortality that we're seeing now is of the extremely slow-growing reef-building corals. These are corals that are the foundation of the reef ... We're talking colonies that were here when Columbus came by have died in the past three to four months."...............Miller noted that some of the devastated coral can never be replaced because it only grows the width of one dime each year.

If coral reefs die "you lose the goose with golden eggs" that are key parts of small island economies, said Edwin Hernandez-Delgado, a University of Puerto Rico biology researcher. While investigating the widespread loss of Caribbean coral, Hernandez-Delgado found a colony of 800-year-old star coral — more than 13 feet high — that had just died in the waters off Puerto Rico.........."We did lose entire colonies," he said. "This is something we have never seen before."

"We haven't seen an event of this magnitude in the Caribbean before," said Mark Eakin, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch.

Tom Goreau of the Global Coral Reef Alliance says that compared to coral areas in the Indian and Pacific ocean, where warming waters have brought about a 90% mortality rate, the Caribbean is healthier.

The Caribbean is actually better off than areas of the Indian and Pacific ocean where mortality rates — mostly from warming waters — have been in the 90 percent range in past years, said Tom Goreau of the Global Coral Reef Alliance. Goreau called what's happening worldwide "an underwater holocaust."

"The prognosis is not good," said biochemistry professor M. James Crabbe of the University of Luton near London. "If you want to see a coral reef, go now, because they just won't survive in their current state."

Read more in AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein's article in the San Francisco Chronicle

*******************

Coral  bleaching is happening all over the world in many countries. Whenever coral is stressed by higher water temperatures, even only 2 or 3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, it  may expel the algae that nourishes it and gives the coral its color, thus coral bleaching. Coral usually recovers from bleaching, but it cannot survive the stress of constant warming waters. Second to rainforests in biodiversity of species, coral reefs have been called the rainforests of the sea. An example of coral reef biodiversity are the reefs of the Florida Keys, which sustain 500 species of fish, more than 1700 species of mollusks, five species of sea turtles, and hundreds of species of sponges. Lose the algae that sustains the coral, we lose the fisheries that depend on the coral. John Ogden, a marine biologist and director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography says that coral reefs provide about 10% of global fisheries, “fish going directly into the mouths of the people who need the protein the most, the coastal populations of Third World countries.”

In  a report released at the 9th Int’l Coral Reef Symposium in Bali, Indonesia (October 2000), Indonesian researchers noted that about 27%  of the world's coral reefs have been destroyed. Most of the remaining coral could be dead in 20 years, if global warming and pollution continue.  [100]

“Reefs are tough,” says Clive Wilkinson, a biologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. “You can hammer them with cyclones, and they’ll bounce right back. What they can’t bounce back from is chronic, constant stress.”  Coral is being stressed by human activity from every direction: Cyanide fishing, harbor dredging, coral mining, deforestation, coastal development, agricultural runoff, careless divers, and now global warming.

During the latter half of the 1990's surface sea temperatures set new records for temperature highs, climbing above 86 degrees, producing widespread bleaching, especially in the Indian Ocean. Over a vast stretch of the Indian Ocean,  from the African coast to southern India, 70% of the coral appears to have died. [35] 

Thomas Goreau, president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, says that of the 207 coral reef sites his organization tracks worldwide, almost 75% experienced surface temperatures high enough to bring about bleaching in 1998. More than half of these corals were killed by the bleaching.

Back to Top of Page
 Some References to News Sources May Have Lost Link
The Trend to Dead Zones in Oceans
In a study released February 15, 2008 researchers noted that coastal waters are showing dead zones, extending from the state of Washington down to California. The reason for the areas of depleted oxygen is the persistent, strong winds that are pushing surface waters. The unusually strong winds promote the growth of plankton and hold low-oxygen water on the continental shelf for longer periods. <> 

“There have always been unusual weather events, such as hurricanes, droughts, and changes in wind patterns,” said Jack Barth, an OSU professor of physical oceanography and a scientist with PISCO. “So it’s difficult to prove that any one event is caused by global warming. Having said that, we expect global warming to generally cause stronger and more persistent winds. “At this point,” Barth added, “I’d be surprised if this trend towards hypoxic events didn’t continue.”    <>On viewing video footage of ocean areas off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, Jane Lubchenco, marine biologist at Oregon State University, said, "We seem to have crossed a tipping point….Low-oxygen zones off the Northwest coast appear to be the new normal…..We couldn't believe our eyes. It was so overwhelming and depressing. It appeared that everything that couldn't swim or scuttle away had died…….Levels of oxygen in the summertime have suddenly become much lower than levels in the previous 50 years……..And 2006 broke all records, with parts of the shallow shelf actually becoming anoxic, meaning that they lacked oxygen altogether. We’ve never seen that before.”

 “People keep asking us, ‘Is this situation really all that different or not?’” Lubchenco said. “Now we have the answer to that question, and it’s an unequivocal ‘yes.’ The low oxygen levels we’ve measured in the last six years are abnormally low for our system. We haven’t seen conditions like this in many, many decades, and now with varying intensity we’ve seen them in each of the last six summers.”  See Dead Zone Video Footage


Decline in Populations of Antarctic Krill
Because of increasing temperatures, areas of sea ice in the Antarctic Peninsula region have diminished significantly. And the algae that grows on the underside of the shrinking sea ice is therefore also diminishing. The algae is a food source of krill, which is also disappearing in antarctic waters. Scientists report a tenfold decline in krill populations during the past 10 years. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) completed a study in November 2004 saying that there has been an 80 percent decline in krill since the 1970's. See BAS Press Release

Besides a decline in its foods source, part of the problem of disappearing krill is the growth in numbers of other tiny marine animals called salps. Warming antarctic waters have brought about a population explosion of the salp, a jellyfish-like creature, which feeds on another krill food-source, phytoplankton. And as krill is a food source of the Adelie penguin, the latter is also disappearing. University of Montana ecologist William Fraser has studied the Adelie penguins for 22 years and has seen their numbers drop 40%. Besides the lack of krill, Fraser believes that warmth could be causing problems for the penguin by bringing spring snowfall that buries the Adelie's eggs under snowbanks.  See on this page Whales-Blue Whale - Antarctica under Danger to Animals

Severe Diseases Caused by Climate Change
A recent study by New Zealand doctors, researchers at the Wellington School of Medicine's public health department said outbreaks of dengue fever in South Pacific islands are directly related to global warming.

************

According to a report from World Wildlife Fund, dengue, or breakbone fever has now resurged in the Americas infecting over 200,000 people in 1995.

************

In a San Francisco Chronicle article (September 28, 1996) Paul Epstein of Harvard's School of Public Health noted during a conference on Climate Change and Human Health in the Asian Pacific, that insects are bringing illnesses like malaria and dengue to higher altitudes in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It was also reported at this conference that continued global warming will cause the spread of these diseases and also encephalitis and yellow fever to higher latitudes.

************

"Many of the most important diseases in poor countries, from malaria to diarrhoea and malnutrition are highly sensitive to climate," said Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, of the World Health Organization (WHO), and a co-author of a report published in the science journal Nature on November 17, 2005. The report says that climate change is the driving force behind an increase in debilitating illnesses such as malaria, malnutrition and diarrhea.
"Those least able to cope and least responsible for the greenhouse gases that cause global warming are most affected," says lead author Jonathan Patz, a professor at University of Wisconsin at Madison's Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. "Herein lies an enormous global ethical challenge."...."Our energy-consumptive lifestyles are having lethal impacts on other people around the world, especially the poor."says Dr. Patz. The parts of the globe most vulnerable are the Asian and South American Pacific coasts, the Indian Ocean coast and sub-Saharan Africa. Patz and his colleagues point to the moral responsibility of the industrial countries, such as the United States to take a leadership role in curbing emissions.

According to the UW-Madison and WHO team, other model-based forecasts of health risks from global climate change project that:

Back to Top of Page
 
Some References to News Sources May Have Lost Link
Forests' Enemy, Beetles
Alaska's Kenai Peninsula
Higher temperatures on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula favor the survival rate of beetle larvae of the spruce bark beetle during the winter months, while speeding their maturing process.  As a result, there are greater populations of this beetle that have destroyed about three million acres of white spruce on the peninsula, notwithstanding the spruce's naturally occurring insecticide found in their resin. Kenneth Raffa, an entomologist who has studied the problem, says that the spruce's defenses are ineffective against the onslaught of large populations of these beetles. [44] 

Ed Holsten, an Anchorage-based entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service, has studied for 22 years the white spruce bark beetle, which prefers to lay its eggs in old growth trees. He says, "On the southern Kenai Peninsula, it's killed 80% or more of the large spruce trees, and beetles don't do well with the small trees." Holsten has estimated that since the 1980's, most of the white spruce has been killed on about 3 million to 3 1/2 million acres. [63]  The continuing trend of higher temperatures is contributing to the weakening of forests, raising the potential for fire, landslides and a reduction in the yield of forests, and a loss of wildlife.

British Columbia Infestation
The following is taken from an article that appeared in the Planet Ark newsletter of November 25, 2002:
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - An epidemic of tree-killing beetles is spreading rapidly through the forests in Canada's largest lumber exporting province, with the deadly insects now found in a area nearly three-quarters the size of Sweden, officials said.

The tiny pine beetles, which have been spreading almost unchecked through British Columbia for several years because of unusually warm winters, have seriously infested 9 million acres (3.6 million hectares) of forests and have now destroyed up 108 million cubic metres of lodgepole pine timber.

Provincial officials tracking the beetle infestation warned in a report that the amount of destroyed trees could reach 150 million cubic metres next year unless the weather turns cold enough to kill larvae before they hatch.
This year's winter in the Cariboo Region where the bugs have hit the hardest is not expected to be particularly cold.  Officials said the number of trees killed in the infested area varies from area to area, but the critical infestation is considered to cover 9 million acres in the province's Interior region, up from 8 million acres last year.

"This is clearly an epidemic of catastrophic proportion," said Larry Pedersen, British Columbia's chief forester.

San Bernardino National Forest
As of 2003 the conifers of the San Bernardino National Forest have spent the last four years struggling with drought. During that time the beetle population has grown in numbers, bolstered by drought-weakened trees, their  ever-expanding food supply. In October, 2002 about 66,000 of the San Bernardino National Forest’s 652,000 acres was hit by the bark beetle. Today that trend stands at 354,000 acres of dead trees and still increasing. Now the deadfall poses the danger of wildfire, that threatens See San Francisco Chronicle August 11, 2003 article by Glen Martin

Back to Top of Page

Threat to Animals
Caribou-Warmer temperatures and more snow, as a result of more moisture in the atmosphere, are the reasons for the steep decline in caribou numbers in the Canadian Arctic, says Greenpeace. During the pasts 30 years, the total caribou population of Canada's western arctic islands has dropped from 24,000 to 3,000. Ann Gunn, a scientist with the Bathurst Island Research Station in Canada, says, Caribou are expending valuable energy trying to dig through deeper levels of snow to eat, and eventually run out of energy and starve to death." [45]

Moose- Back in January, 1999, 100 Alaskan moose faced starvation because of heavy snowfall  in their winter feeding area, which is known as the Portage Flats, and located near Anchorage. The threatened animals were searching for food, belly-deep in snow. The  heavy snow, the same as the plight of the caribou, was the result of global warming putting more moisture into the atmosphere. The animals head for Portage Flats when snow forces them out of nearby higher valleys. At this writing we have no idea what happened to the 100 moose.  [46]

Gray Wolf and Woodland Buffalo-According to a recent World Wildlife Fund study, forest ecosystems in Canada, Alaska and northern Russia are vulnerable to global warming. The species inhabiting these regions - such as the gray wolf and woodland buffalo - may not be able to migrate fast enough to cooler climates to escape the effects of increasing temperatures. [48]

Polar Bear-Temperatures in the Antarctic and Arctic has increased significantly to the point that sea ice has diminished in the both regions. In the Arctic this has meant a decreased habitat for the polar bear. [48] The polar bear depends heavily on the capture of ringed seal, because this seal has a very heavy lipid layer. This fatty tissue is especially needed by the female, who banks on the energy stores for the winter when she gives birth to a couple of cubs. The decreasing Arctic ice will vastly diminish the chances of polar bears capturing these seals, because the bears stalks seals using the seal's breathing hole in the ice.

The polar bears around Hudson Bay number about 1200. In late fall they wait for the formation of sea ice to allow them to hunt seals. Nowadays ice melts off the Hudson Bay three weeks earlier, which means that much less time to pursue and feed on seal pups. It also means they have that much less time to gorge on seals and increase their bodies' fat stores. Compared to polar bears 20 years ago, the bears around Hudson Bay are 10% thinner and have 10% fewer cubs. According to a climate model developed by Canada's equivalent of the EPA, Environment Canada, this sub-Arctic area of tundra within 30 years could become New England-like with a temperate leafy forest. No place for polar bears.  [99]

Melting sea ice is leaving greater and greater distances for polar bears to travel in their hunts for food. In December, 2005, marine biologists from the US Minerals Management Service attending the sixteenth biennial conference on the biology of sea mammals in San Diego, California, reported that they found 4 polar bears drowned off  the northern coast of Alaska last fall. They also described seeing more polar bears in the open sea, some as far as 60 miles offshore. They noted that 20% of bears seen in the area in September, 2005 were in the water, while in previous years, records show that 4% of sighted bears were swimming. Read Report by Tim Simonite found in BioEd Online

Back to Top of Page
 Some References to News Sources May Have Lost Link
Whales-Blue Whale - (Antarctica)
Melting polar ice is threatening the main food source for Antarctic blue whales and could lead to their extinction, an international environmental group said Thursday.  The whales feed on small sea creatures known as krill, which in turn eat microscopic marine algae. The algae live in sea ice and are released in the summer when the ice melts. The environmental group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said studies had shown that as the temperature has increased in recent decades because of climate change, sea ice had diminished rapidly and food supplies for blue whales were getting scarce. "If this decline continues, it will seriously affect the entire ecosystem of the Southern Ocean and could lead to the extinction of the Antarctic blue whale," WWF said in a statement ahead of a meeting in London next week of the International Whaling Commission. The blue whale population in the Antarctic was drastically reduced by commercial  whaling from 250,000 a century ago to probably below 1,000 today, WWF said. The population has shown no signs of recovery since blue whales were protected from whaling more than 35 years ago. The blue whale, which weighs 160 tons and measures up to 30 yards long, is the largest animal ever to live on Earth. WWF said that apart from the effects of climate change, krill were also threatened by an increase in commercial fishing.  WWF whale specialist Stuart Chapman said, "It would be a catastrophe for the natural world if the decline of the blue whale was accelerated by new commercial pressures. It would be the final nail in the coffin." (Thursday, July 19, 2001 By Reuters).  [97]

Minke Whales (Antarctica)
There has been an unexpected collapse of in the numbers of the world’s most hunted whale, the minke. Scientists are saying that a sharp contraction in sea ice in Antarctica is the reason. The latest findings say that fallen by nearly half in less than a decade. A count of minke whales in the Southern Ocean around the Antarctic, between 1985 and 1991, were estimated at about 760,000. The latest counts, during the 1990’s, suggest there are now only about 380,000 left.  No one knows why their numbers are dropping. Global warming is the main suspect, since krill on which they feed live at the edge of the sea ice.  [98]

Coastal Flooding
Global warming is melting ice to the tune of 50 billion tons of water a year from the Greenland ice sheet. A NASA high-tech aerial survey shows that more than 11 cubic miles of ice is disappearing from the ice sheet annually.  "We see a significant trend (in loss of ice mass)," said William B. Krabill, NASA scientist and lead author of a study on Greenland ice melting. "When we can go back after five years and see 10 meters of glacier gone, there is something happening." This is increasing the likelihood of coastal flooding around the world, if this meltdown trend continues. [53]
 
The rising sea level has led to salt water encroachment producing the "Ghost forests" of South Florida and Louisiana. Since about 1970, the invading salt water has killed hundreds of acres of southern baldcypress trees in Louisiana coastal parishes and sabal palm in Florida. [90]

 Back to Top of Page
 Some References to News Sources May Have Lost Link
Wildfires Increasing
The forests of Canada, Alaska and the former Soviet Union including Siberia are apparently burning like never before, experts said at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco (Dec.18, 2000). The likely reason: Global warming is drying out northern timber and brush. As a result, lightning bolts spark infernos of colossal extent. In Alaska and Canada's boreal forests, fire consumed an average of more than 7 million acres a year in the 1990s. That's a sharp rise from the average of 3 million acres per year in the 1960s, scientists said on the third day of the conference.  See Source Article or  103

************

The year 2000 was the worst U.S. wildfire season in 50 years. A replay is proving that the year 2001 is producing scorching summer weather, again turning the Western United States into a tinderbox, where a few sparks could easily ignite a new inferno. Officials at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, say bone-dry conditions coupled with thick underbrush make for another potential record-breaking fire season in 2001. Firestorms in 2000 scorched some 7.5 million acres — an area roughly the size of Maryland — and cost some $1.7 billion to fight.  See Article or  106

************

<>With wildfires come the prospect of flooding and mudslides. The record California wildfires of October - November 2003 that destroyed 100s of thousands of forest acreage, together with thousands of homes and businesses, promise more destruction from floods and landslides, say forest officials. See Planet Ark Story  Also See ENN Article

The wildfires burning in the late summer of 2001 across the Western United States were releasing tons of mercury into the atmosphere, say researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Hans Friedli and colleague Lawrence Radke conducted laboratory tests to find out how much mercury a fire could release. About half the atmospheric mercury got there from natural sources in soil, oceans and volcanoes, and the other half through human activity. Mercury is transformed in the atmosphere through chemical processes and then rains or falls out as wet or dry deposition to the surface. For trees, "wet deposition is most important," said Friedli. "Mercury is picked up by the surfaces - the leaves or needles - and it stays there." At least until those trees burn.
For the experiment, forest samples  from across the continental U.S. were set alight at the U.S. Forest Service Fire Science Laboratory's burn facility in  Missoula, Montana. The team's sensors immediately detected mercury. All samples released almost all of the mercury they had stored - from 94 percent to 99 percent. All the samples contained mercury at levels ranging from 14 to 71 nanograms per gram of fuel.A nanogram is one trillionth of a gram; about 28 grams make an ounce. The team extrapolated their findings to global biomass burning from wildfires and from human activities, such as clearing land for agriculture. They estimated the contribution at up to 800 tons per year, or 25 percent of all manmade sources of airborne mercury.  See Source Article or  [107]

Warming Ocean Waters Kills Plankton - Bottom of Food Chain
Warming ocean waters off the Seychelles (600 miles NE of Madagascar) are killing extensive areas of plankton. The dead plankton is depleting the surrounding waters of oxygen, harming ocean life nearby. Fish and sea cucumbers are expected to be the first casualties. See Planet Ark Story
 

The Danger to Birds

  Back to Top of Page
 Some References to News Sources May Have Lost Link
Besides global warming, here's what fossil fuel dependency gives us
Back to Top of Page
 
For More on Global Warming
Prior EcoBridge Projects
Ecobridge Home Page
There's a Lot You Can Do
Evidence of Global Warming
Present Danger of Global Warming
Future Threat of Global Warming
Causes of Global Warming
Positive Feedback Loops
Find Out About the Kyoto Protocol
What We Can Do About Global Warming
EcoBridge Global Warming Reference Page
Frequently Asked Questions About Global Warming
Current News on Global Warming