Threat of Climate Change
"Global warming is real; the risks it poses are real; and the American people have a right to know it and a responsibility to do something about it. The sooner Congress understands that, the sooner we can protect our nation--and our planet--from increased flood, fire, drought, and deadly heat waves." President Bill Clinton, July 25, 1998. (Quotation from transcript of President Clinton’s radio address of July 25, 1998)

Deaths Due to Global Warming (updated May 13, 2007)
The Threat of Mass Extinction new June1,2006

Species Threatened by Climate Change updated July 26, 2006
Coral Bleaching & Disintegration updated June 1, 2006
The Trend to Dead Zones in Oceans updated March 1, 2008
Floods
More Intense Hurricanes on the Way
Heat Waves
Increasing Power Outages
Forests and Wildfires
Global Warming, Forests & Bark Beetles (updated February 9, 2007)

Threat to Boreal Forests (updated June 1, 2006)
Sea Level Rise of 3 feet by 2100, research by Jonathan T. Overpeck, Bette L.Otto-Bliesner et al


Sea Level Rise & Climate Change Refugees
Sea Level Rise & Impact on US Cities
Coastal Wetlands
U.S. Coasts
San Francisco Bay-Example of Cost Impact of Sea Level Rise on Coastal City
Spread of Infectious Diseases
Escalating Increase in Allergens
Global Warming And Asthma
Loss of Arctic Sea Ice  updated May 4, 2007
Weather-Related Damage
Disappearing Beaches
Damage & Loss of World's Ecosystems & Biomes
Antarctica
Effect on Stratospheric Ozone
Effect on World's Food Production
Thawing Permafrost & Tundra As Sources of CO2 Emissions updated June 20, 2006
Disappearing Glaciers
Water Shortages & More Droughts
Increasing ocean storms and coastal erosion
Greenland - A key to accelerating climate change
The Sky is Rising

Disappearing Plankton - Bottom of the Food Chain
Threat to Krill - Food Source of Fish, Seabirds, Squids, Whales, Seals, Penguins
Threat to Winter Sports Industry
Carbon dioxide emissions increase acidity of ocean waters

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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

Species Threatened by Global Warming
There are estimates among scientists that one million species are threatened with extinction by climate change. In the journal Nature researchers say in their study, Extinction Risk From Climate Change, concluded that from 15 to 37% of all the species in the regions studied could be driven to extinction by the climate changes between now and 2050. The study's lead author, Professor Chris Thomas, of the University of Leeds, UK, says: "If the projections can be extrapolated globally, and to other groups of land animals and plants, our analyses suggest that well over a million species could be threatened with extinction." Read BBC report See (or read transcript) May 20, 2004 Online Newshour Video of discussion of climate-driven  extinctions (Interview of researchers Lee Hannah & Camille Parmesan)

Because of climate change, one-fourth of all plants and animal species could face extincition by 2100.(Climate change documentary, Too Hot Not To Handle)

Birds
Sooty Shearwater
The Sooty Shearwater, a U.S west coast bird that at one time numbered 5 million, now numbers about 450,000. "Warmer water has reduced upwellings in the Pacific Ocean, which bring the Shearwaters' main source of food, squid and plankton to the surface," says Barnaby Briggs, official with Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.Quoting from an EPA website: "Populations of sooty shearwaters off the coast of California and Washington declined by 90 percent between 1987 and 1994, a period when sea surface temperatures increased. The decline represents a potential loss of more than 4 million birds. The warmer water triggers a reduction in upwelling, a circulatory process that brings nutrient-rich water to the ocean’s surface. Over the past two decades, reduced upwelling apparently has caused a 70 percent decrease in zooplankton, a key food source for shearwaters and the small fish that the shearwaters eat."  EPA Website

Spoon-billed sandpiper
In North America, the Arctic tundra is expected to retreat northwards and be replaced by forest. The globally threatened spoon-billed sandpiper could lose 60 percent of its nesting sites. [118]

The Capercaillie
In the U.K the capercaillie-the world's largest grouse-is predicted to lose 99 percent of its pine forest habitat, if expected temperatures increase reaches 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit by mid-century.[118]

The Scottish crossbill
Scottish crossbill, found only in Scotland.

Migration Timing
Birds and animals are stressed by rising temperatures in areas to which they migrate. They are now heading north and south away from equatorial regions that have become too hot. The problem is will the food and shelter resources be as valuable to the birds as what they left behind?  Already about 11% of all birds are threatened with extinction, while two-thirds of the planet's 9600 bird species are in a state of decline, says the IUCN. Are we hastening more bird species to the endangered list?

Migratory birds, while flying nonstop hundreds or even thousands of miles, depend on a relatively stable weather scenario, expecting their food resources to be in place. Timing is everything, especially to migrating birds. Sea level rise is likely to threaten prime feeding and breeding grounds for millions of birds throughout the world, including mallards, red knots, pintails, plovers, warblers and orioles. [38]

The migration of Canada geese is being affected now by climate change. In response to increasing temperatures, these geese are arriving in Hudson Bay, during the summer, several weeks earlier than their food supply allows. Their primary food is marsh plants, which grow in response to the length of days, not to changes in temperature, and sprout after the geese arrive. But the birds are hungry and cannot wait for the plants to sprout. The geese eat the plants' roots, decimating their own future food supply, while threatening this habitat used by other bird species. [96]

Arctic Warming
A constant warming of the Arctic is now threatening populations of birds of the region, according to a report by the World Wildlife Fund. In their study the WWF showed that rising temperatures would push wooded areas northward, eventually replacing the tundra, that is host to millions of birds. Arctic warming, as much as 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, would be responsible for the extinction of several bird species.

Adelie Penguin
Wayne Trivelpiece,who directs Antarctic seabird research for the U.S. Antarctic Research Division at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, noted in 2004 a 50% dropoff in Adelie penguin populations on the Antarctic Peninsula since 1994.

Emperor Penguins
Between 1950 and 2001 Antarctica's emperor penguin population has decreased by 50%. "We knew since the 1980s that emperor penguins had declined, but it is only today, because of the improvements of our knowledge in the climate-ocean processes, that we have been able to understand why they have decreased," said Henri Weimerskirch of the French National Center for Scientific Research in Villers en Bois, France. Weimerskirch believes that climate change is responsible for this penguin's decline. A staple of the emperor's diet is krill. Sea ice is decreasing in the Southern Ocean, and with less sea ice there is less algae underneath the sea ice that krill eat. Less sea ice, less algae, less krill, less penguins and other animals. See Threat to Krill -
Food Source for Fish, Seabirds, Squids, Whales, Seals, Penguins and See Report By John Roach National Geographic News

North - Central United States Ducks
According to one study, global warming could cause breeding populations of ducks in the north-central United States to decline by more than half—from 5 million birds today to between 2.1 and 2.7 million by the year 2060. (See EPA Website)

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Animals
Polar Bears
In June, 2005, 40 members of the polar bear specialist group of the World Conservation Union concluded that polar bears -- the world's largest bear -- should now be classified as a "vulnerable" species based on a likely 30 percent decline in their worldwide population over the next 35 to 50 years. There are now 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears across the Arctic. Arctic  sea ice has declined over one  million  square miles, the size of Norway, Denmark and  Sweden combined. As they need sea ice to hunt for seals, decreasing arctic ice will lead to the demise of polar bears. See Washington Post article

According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the polar bears around Hudson Bay now number about 1000, down from 1200 not too long ago. In late fall the polar bears around Hudson Bay 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.  [64]

Polar bears need sea ice so they can find mates and hunt for seals. A retreat and loss of sea ice is making it harder for these animals to maintain their populations and get enough food. Pregnant females and those with cubs may be particularly at risk. [92]

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

A study on instances of cannabilism among polar bears in the Beaufort Sea has been reported in the online version of the journal Polar Biology on April 27, 2006 by researchers of the U.S. Geological Survey, Alaska Science Center, Canadian Wildlife Service and others. One episode involved a polar bear killing a female polar bear in  her den, shortly after giving birth. Another, when a yearling male was killed. Researchers noted in their abstract that "during 24 years of research on polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea region of northern Alaska and 34 years in northwestern Canada, we have not seen other incidents of polar bears stalking, killing, and eating other polar bears. We hypothesize that nutritional stresses related to the longer ice-free seasons that have occurred in the Beaufort Sea in recent years may have led to the cannibalism incidents we observed in 2004."

The town of Churchill located in Canada's Manitoba Province and on the southwest shore of Hudson Bay has been the starting point of travelers who wish to see polar bears. But with the onslaught of climate change and the fading Hudson Bay ice (and the chance to hunt seals on the ice), the numbers of polar bears frequenting this area are dwindling, and the chances of seeing them are fewer.

Listen to (or read the transcript) NPR's Living on Earth as Steve Curwood interviews citizens of Churchill discussing their polar bear guests

Grizzly Bears
As with Alaska's warmer winters that produce healthier populations of white spruce bark beetles, warmer winters in Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park are finding healthier populations of bark beetles in whitebark pines, one of  the main food sources for grizzly bears. See NRDC Report
With whitebark pines threatened by extinction, we could lose the remaining 1000 grizzly bears, now living mostly in Yellowstone and Glacier National Park.

Walrus
In the Defenders of Wildlife publication, Defender, their summer, 2006 issue reported researchers discovering 9 abandoned baby walruses, crying and alone in the Bering Sea. Walrus mothers generally stay with their young for two years, says Carin Ashjian, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Ashjian was one of a group of researchers that released a study in April, 2006 on walruses. Adult walruses use sea-ice to rest on before continuing their dives for food. The research team, as one of their findings, discovered that water temperatures in the Bering Sea had climbed 6 degrees Fahrenheit since 2002. About the stranded baby walruses, the researchers surmise that the adults were forced to travel great distances in search of food and became separated from their calves. Walrus calves may follow their mothers out into the sea, or be left on sea ice platforms, while the mother hunts. Such walrus babies unable to fend for themselves may either starve or drown, except for the lucky 9 saved by the researchers.

Caribou
Sea ice also serves as a seasonal migration route for caribou. Heavier snowfall and freezing rain events will increase the energy expenditure of caribou and reindeer when migrating and searching for food, and could lead to significant population declines over time. The Peary caribou have declined from 24,000 in 1961 to 1100 in 1997 because of more moisture in the air leading to heavier snowfall.  [93]

Alligators
Florida alligators are sensitive to saltwater encroachment as sea level rises and storm surges increase, as they lack the salt-secreting glands of the crocodile. As the salt water content of their habitat increases, they search farther inland for fresher water. But they are in-between a rock and a hard place, as they move towards suburban and agricultural property.  [120]

Turtles
Turtles may be threatened by climate change. Sex ratios of hatchling turtles are temperature dependent and increased warmth could potentially lead to all-female populations. See British Trust for Ornithology

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Marine Life See also Coral Bleaching and Disintegration On this Page

Disappearing Plankton - Bottom of the Food Chain

The ability of the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide may be at risk. Presently oceans are absorbing about 2 billion tons of carbon annually [3] . A report in Nature, August 1995, suggests that the oceans may be losing fixed nitrogen, an essential fertilizer that allows phytoplankton to grow. Phytoplankton absorb and fix carbon that is then transferred to the deep ocean. If in fact the oceans are losing nitrogen as they warm, they will tend to absorb less carbon, boosting the rate of carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere. [24]

Plankton are a major carbon sink in addition to the forests, other green plants, the permafrost, the earth's soil and atmosphere. Plankton take in about half of all the world's CO2, using the carbon for growth, while releasing oxygen during the process of photosythesis. During the past 20 years there has been a stark decline, more than 9%, in primary production of plankton, while in the same period plankton of the North Atlantic has decreased by 7%. Less plankton; less carbon uptake.Watson W. Gregg, a NASA biologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland says that the greatest loss of phytoplankton has occurred where ocean temperatures have risen most significantly between the early 1980's and the late 1990's. In the North Atlantic summertime sea surface temperatures rose about 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit during that period, Gregg said, while in the North Pacific the ocean's surface temperatures rose about 7/10ths of a degree.(San Francisco Chronicle, David Perlman, Science Editor, October 6, 2003).  See NASA Report on Ocean Plant Life Absorbing Less Carbon

In the Arctic, loss of sea ice associated with warming could result in the diminution of phytoplankton populations. This could lead to ‘knock-on effects’ throughout the Arctic food chain, including declines in the stocks of several key prey species of cetaceans, such as copepods and plankton-feeding fish, including Arctic cod, a key prey species for narwhal and beluga whales. Warming and the attendant ice melt might result in greater stratification of the water column and decreased nutrient resupply, limiting the growth of phytoplankton populations that are a critical link in the cetacean food chain in the region. See Report by William Burns, Director of Communications & Research Associate, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security  As a consequence primarily of the burning of fossil fuels, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent assessment projects that temperatures will rise 4 - 10 degrees F or more this century.In a report by Pacific Institute Research Associate William Burns, concludes that this could prove disastrous for many species of cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises). In the Antarctic, where 90% of the world's great whales feed, rising temperatures could reduce sea ice by more than 40% this century. This may severely deplete the abundance of krill, a zooplankton species that are the primary source of food for whales, as well as penguins in the Southern Hemisphere. In the Arctic, warming trends could result in the total disappearance of the region's year-round icepack within the next fifty years, diminishing the abundance of phytoplankton species relied on by endangered whale species such as narwhal and beluga. Reductions in sea ice could also open up the Northwest Passage, exposing species in the region to increased ship traffic and threats associated with mineral exploitation. In other regions of the world, warming may also alter ocean upwelling patterns, creating massive blooms of toxics associated with the death of thousands of marine species over the past decade, as well as increase precipitation in some regions, resulting in the runoff of more pollutants from land into coastal waterways inhabited by whales, dolphins and porpoises.  See July 11, 2000 Press Release by Pacific Institute

Threat to Krill - Food Source for Fish, Seabirds, Squids, Whales, Seals, Penguins

Krill, a large zooplankton, is a food source for whales, seals, penguins, seabirds, squids and fish. Because of increasing temperatures (about 4 degrees Fahrenheit) in Antarctica, areas of sea ice in this 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 disappearing in antarctic waters. Scientists report a tenfold decline in krill populations during the past 10 years. 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. See NOAA Page 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 tolerates warmer water than krill.. 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. Listen to researchers Angus Atkinson & William Fraser discuss loss of Antarctic krill November 3, 2004

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Stuart Chapman, World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) whale specialist, said: "The world's largest problem could mean extinction in the Antarctic for the world's largest animal. 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. The population has shown no signs of recovery since the species was officially protected from whaling more than 35 year 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. 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."  See World Wildlife Fund  Apart from commercial boats, the decreasing sea ice will be sufficient to threaten krill populations and those animals that depend on krill.

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In the waters off the U.S west coast, krill  collect near the drop-off of the contental shelf into deep ocean. During the daylight hours, the krill are found about 1000 feet down, and come to surface at night to feed on phytoplankton.

It is not only the blue whale threatened by declining krill, but other baleen whales also, such as the humpback, the right whale, fin whale, Bryde's whale, northern minke, antarctic minke, Eden's ("small-type") whale, and sei whale.

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Krill populations in the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence have declined dramatically, according to scientists with the Maurice Lamontagne Institute, a marine science center associated with the federal agency Fisheries and Oceans Canada. "The biomass of macrozooplankton [the krill] in these two areas [the Gulf and the Estuary] has dropped from 32 metric tons per square kilometer (km²) in 1994 to 10 tons per km² in 2003, which represents a reduction of 70 percent in 10 years," researchers Michel Harvey and Michel Starr write, in a publication (reports the Environmental News Service) of the Maurice Lamontagne Institute.

The Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence have historically seen huge areas of krill, and each summer, from 30 to 40 whales have been spotted in the Laurentian Channel, a cold water current which starts along the coast of Newfoundland and ends in Saguenay Fjord. But in the summer of 2003, the researchers identified only 15 whales. "Reduction in the krill is perhaps due to warming of the climate" says Dr. Harvey. See Enviromental News Service for more

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For a few months in spring 2005 off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington, krill disappeared completely, resulting in seabirds dying by the thousands, a halting of nesting of Cassin's and rhinoceros auklets, cormorant and murre species on the Farallon Islands, 27 miles west of San Francisco. The absence of krill also deprived marine mammals of food, leaving many along the coast malnourished.

Ordinarily west coastal waters are cold. Winds off the northern west coast come out of the Northwest, pushing surface waters resulting in upwelling. The upwelling brings nutrients up from the depths. The phytoplankton utilizes the nutrients and provide the food source for krill, the largest of zooplankton, measuring around one inch in length.. During the daytime the krill stay at depths of 1000 feet, rising at night to feed on the phytoplankton on the surface.

But in the months of May and April 2005 the winds shifted, reducing the upwelling, the nutrients for the phytoplankton and the food for krill, leading to the dieoff krill, leading to the dieoff of seabirds and malnourishment of marine mammals.

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Whales

Whales have less success breeding in warmer waters. Can whales adapt or will their numbers be challenged as global warming proceeds. See British Trust for Ornithology article

Pacific Coast Crabs
With oncoming global warming, some crab species along the Pacific coast may face extinction. A study shows that small crabs who live in warmer waters near Pacific beaches are threatened by rising temperatures. In a study by Jonathon H. Stillman, a marine biologist at Stanford University, the scientist demonstrated the low tolerance for minute changes in temperatures in crabs located in the Gulf of California. Stillman's findings were published in the July 4, 2003 issue of the journal Science. See July 4, 2003 Environmental News Network Story

Stillman said other studies have already noted that at least one crab species along North America's West Coast has disappeared from a traditional habitat. Studies also have shown that some other coastal species have moved farther north to escape the temperature rise in southern waters.

Seals
Those species of seal that need ice for resting, pup rearing and molting, will also be at risk. [92]

The Threat of Mass Extinction
The first recorded mass extinction of species took place 440 million years ago, the Ordovician extinction and the second deadliest of the five great periods of extinction. During that era, fossil records show an abrupt die-off of two-thirds of the Earth’s species. During the late Devonian period, about 375 million years ago, another mass extinction occurred that resulted in most of the planet’s fish species dying. About 250 million years ago the third,  and most severe mass extinction took place, the Permian-Triassic extinction or "the Great Dying." This die-off resulted in loss of almost all marine life and most of the land species.The fourth mass extinction took place about 205 million years ago at the end of the Triassic Period. The fifth mass extinction took place about 65 million years ago. The majestic era of the dinosaurs ended when about half of all species died off, having existed 165 million years. And now a sixth mass extinction is underway.

In January, 2003 a study by lead author, biologist Terry Root, and 5 colleagues at Stanford's Institute for International Studies involved reviewing scientific studies pertaining to 1,400 plant and animal species. The Stanford researchers determined that about 80% of those species have undergone range or behavioral changes likely caused by climate change. "If we've had so much change with just 1 degree, think of how much we will have with 10 degrees," Terry Root said, referring to the estimate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of a 3 to 10 degree Fahrenheit increase by the end of the century. "In my opinion, we're sitting at the edge of a mass extinction."

In a study published in the journal Nature, January 8, 2004, its authors found that 15 to 37% of all species in the study regions could become extinct from expected temperature increases by 2050.(126) “If the projections can be extrapolated globally, and to other groups of land animals and plants, our analyses suggest that well over a million species could be threatened with extinction as a result of climate change,” said lead author Chris Thomas of the University of Leeds, England.

“This study makes clear that climate change is the biggest new extinction threat,” says co-author Lee Hannah. “The combination of increasing habitat loss and climate change together is particularly worrying. Increases in temperature can force a species to move toward its preferred, usually cooler, climate range. If habitat destruction has already altered those habitats, the species will have no safe haven.”… “It's the climate changes that would occur by 2050 that would eventually lead to that level of extinction.” Said Hannah on the NewsHour May 20, 2004.

Co-author Guy Midgley of the National Botanical Institute in Cape Town, South Africa said, “In some cases we found that there will no longer be anywhere climatically suitable for these species to live; in other cases they may be unable to reach distant regions where the climate will be suitable. Other species are expected to survive in much reduced areas, where they may then be at risk from other threats.”(126)

The Nature paper by Thomas et al concluded that minimum expected climate change scenarios for 2050 produce fewer projected extinctions (about 18% averaging across the different methods). With mid-range temperature increases about 24% of studied species will become extinct after 2050, while if maximum temperature increases are brought about, than a possible 35% of species will be lost. Therefore about 15-20% of all land species could possibly be saved from extinction, given that we derive a minimum of warming, rather than the maximum. (126)

Biologist Camille Parmesan, one of the first scientists to study the effect of climate change on species, is concerned with animals and plants that are forced to move north to find a climate that suits them, as temperatures rise. Says Parmesan, “The question is, how many species are going to be able to just move north and live perfectly happily, and how many are going to be obstructed, either because they are such habitat specialists that there just isn't any food for them to the North or they're being delayed because they are dependent on some plant; the plant has a slower rate of change, therefore, they can't move north.”

In April, 2006 a study, Global Warming and Extinctions of Endemic Species from Biodiversity Hotspots, was published in the journal Conservation Biology. It investigated the potential of global warming on 25 tropical hot spots, places that exhibited an unusually high degree of diversity. Of the approximately 9800 species of birds on the planet, these hot spots were home to about 3500 species. “And of that, we would be talking about 43% not having climatically suitable habitat in 100 years,” says Toronto University Professor Jay Malcolm, lead author of the study. These hotspots have species that are unique to these areas only. “We’re talking extinction. Once they’re gone -- that’s it,” Malcolm says. Malcolm acknowledges that many experts regard as a conservative estimate that greenhouse gas emissions will double by the end of the century. As conservative a scenario as Malcolm anticipates, we cannot come anywhere close to doubling emissions by century's end, without, as NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies director Jim Hansen puts it, making this an entirely different planet.

The following is a segment of an essay Jim Hansen did in the July 13, 2006 New York Review of Books. It seems a good fit for this section:
Studies of more than one thousand species of plants, animals, and insects, including butterfly ranges charted by members of the public, found an average migration rate toward the North and South Poles of about four miles per decade in the second half of the twentieth century. That is not fast enough. During the past thirty years the lines marking the regions in which a given average temperature prevails ("isotherms") have been moving poleward at a rate of about thirty-five miles per decade. That is the size of a county in Iowa. Each decade the range of a given species is moving one row of counties northward.

As long as the total movement of isotherms toward the poles is much smaller than the size of the habitat, or the ranges in which the animals live, the effect on species is limited. But now the movement is inexorably toward the poles and totals more than a hundred miles over the past several decades. If emissions of greenhouse gases continue to increase at the current rate—"business as usual"—then the rate of isotherm movement will double in this century to at least seventy miles per decade. If we continue on this path, a large fraction of the species on Earth, as many as 50 percent or more, may become extinct.

The species most at risk are those in polar climates and the biologically diverse slopes of alpine regions. Polar animals, in effect, will be pushed off the planet. Alpine species will be pushed toward higher altitudes, and toward smaller, rockier areas with thinner air; thus, in effect, they will also be pushed off the planet. A few such species, such as polar bears, no doubt will be "rescued" by human beings, but survival in zoos or managed animal reserves will be small consolation to bears or nature lovers.

Some of the Large Animals Threatened

Polar Bears
In June, 2005, 40 members of the polar bear specialist group of the World Conservation Union concluded that polar bears -- the world's largest bear -- should now be classified as a "vulnerable" species based on a likely 30 percent decline in their worldwide population over the next 35 to 50 years. There are now 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears across the Arctic. Arctic  sea ice has declined over one  million  square miles, the size of Norway, Denmark and  Sweden combined. As they need sea ice to hunt for seals, decreasing arctic ice will lead to the demise of polar bears. See Washington Post article

According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the polar bears around Hudson Bay now number about 1000, down from 1200 not too long ago. In late fall the polar bears around Hudson Bay 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.  [64]

Polar bears need sea ice so they can find mates and hunt for seals. A retreat and loss of sea ice is making it harder for these animals to maintain their populations and get enough food. Pregnant females and those with cubs may be particularly at risk. [92]

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

A study on instances of cannabilism among polar bears in the Beaufort Sea has been reported in the online version of the journal Polar Biology on April 27, 2006 by researchers of the U.S. Geological Survey, Alaska Science Center, Canadian Wildlife Service and others. One episode involved a polar bear killing a female polar bear in  her den, shortly after giving birth. Another, when a yearling male was killed. Researchers noted in their abstract that "during 24 years of research on polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea region of northern Alaska and 34 years in northwestern Canada, we have not seen other incidents of polar bears stalking, killing, and eating other polar bears. We hypothesize that nutritional stresses related to the longer ice-free seasons that have occurred in the Beaufort Sea in recent years may have led to the cannibalism incidents we observed in 2004."

The town of Churchill located in Canada's Manitoba Province and on the southwest shore of Hudson Bay has been the starting point of travelers who wish to see polar bears. But with the onslaught of climate change and the fading Hudson Bay ice (and the chance to hunt seals on the ice), the numbers of polar bears frequenting this area are dwindling, and the chances of seeing them are fewer.

Listen to (or read the transcript) NPR's Living on Earth as Steve Curwood interviews citizens of Churchill discussing their polar bear guests

Grizzly Bears
As with Alaska's warmer winters that produce healthier populations of white spruce bark beetles, warmer winters in Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park are finding healthier populations of bark beetles in whitebark pines, one of  the main food sources for grizzly bears. See NRDC Report

With whitebark pines threatened by extinction, we could lose the remaining 1000 grizzly bears, now living mostly in Yellowstone and Glacier National Park.

Walrus
In the Defenders of Wildlife publication, Defender, their summer, 2006 issue reported researchers discovering 9 abandoned baby walruses, crying and alone in the Bering Sea. Walrus mothers generally stay with their young for two years, says Carin Ashjian, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Ashjian was one of a group of researchers that released a study in April, 2006 on walruses. Adult walruses use sea-ice to rest on before continuing their dives for food. The research team, as one of their findings, discovered that water temperatures in the Bering Sea had climbed 6 degrees Fahrenheit since 2002. About the stranded baby walruses, the researchers surmise that the adults were forced to travel great distances in search of food and became separated from their calves. Walrus calves may follow their mothers out into the sea, or be left on sea ice platforms, while the mother hunts. Such walrus babies unable to fend for themselves may either starve or drown, except for the lucky 9 saved by the researchers.

Whales

Whales have less success breeding in warmer waters. Can whales adapt or will their numbers be challenged as global warming proceeds. See British Trust for Ornithology article<>

Krill Loss & Threat to Whales, Birds, Penguins
Krill populations in the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence have declined dramatically, according to scientists with the Maurice Lamontagne Institute, a marine science center associated with the federal agency Fisheries and Oceans Canada. "The biomass of macrozooplankton [the krill] in these two areas [the Gulf and the Estuary] has dropped from 32 metric tons per square kilometer (km²) in 1994 to 10 tons per km² in 2003, which represents a reduction of 70 percent in 10 years," researchers Michel Harvey and Michel Starr write, in a publication of the Maurice Lamontagne Institute. The Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence have historically seen huge areas of krill, and each summer, from 30 to 40 whales have been spotted in the Laurentian Channel, a cold water current which starts along the coast of Newfoundland and ends in Saguenay Fjord. But in the summer of 2003, the researchers identified only 15 whales. "Reduction in the krill is perhaps due to warming of the climate" says Dr. Harvey. See Enviromental News Service for more

In the Arctic, loss of sea ice associated with warming could result in the diminution of phytoplankton populations. This could lead to ‘knock-on effects’ throughout the Arctic food chain, including declines in the stocks of several key prey species of cetaceans, such as copepods and plankton-feeding fish, including Arctic cod, a key prey species for narwhal and beluga whales. Warming and the attendant ice melt might result in greater stratification of the water column and decreased nutrient resupply, limiting the growth of phytoplankton populations that are a critical link in the cetacean food chain in the region. See Report by William Burns, Director of Communications & Research Associate, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security  As a consequence primarily of the burning of fossil fuels, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent assessment projects that temperatures will rise 4 - 10 degrees F or more this century.In a report by Pacific Institute Research Associate William Burns, concludes that this could prove disastrous for many species of cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises). In the Antarctic, where 90% of the world's great whales feed, rising temperatures could reduce sea ice by more than 40% this century. This may severely deplete the abundance of krill, a zooplankton species that are the primary source of food for whales, as well as penguins in the Southern Hemisphere. In the Arctic, warming trends could result in the total disappearance of the region's year-round icepack within the next fifty years, diminishing the abundance of phytoplankton species relied on by endangered whale species such as narwhal and beluga. Reductions in sea ice could also open up the Northwest Passage, exposing species in the region to increased ship traffic and threats associated with mineral exploitation. In other regions of the world, warming may also alter ocean upwelling patterns, creating massive blooms of toxics associated with the death of thousands of marine species over the past decade, as well as increase precipitation in some regions, resulting in the runoff of more pollutants from land into coastal waterways inhabited by whales, dolphins and porpoises.  See July 11, 2000 Press Release by Pacific Institute

Pacific Coast Crabs
With oncoming global warming, some crab species along the Pacific coast may face extinction. A study shows that small crabs who live in warmer waters near Pacific beaches are threatened by rising temperatures. In a study by Jonathon H. Stillman, a marine biologist at Stanford University, the scientist demonstrated the low tolerance for minute changes in temperatures in crabs located in the Gulf of California. Stillman's findings were published in the July 4, 2003 issue of the journal Science. See July 4, 2003 Environmental News Network Story

Stillman said other studies have already noted that at least one crab species along North America's West Coast has disappeared from a traditional habitat. Studies also have shown that some other coastal species have moved farther north to escape the temperature rise in southern waters.

Seals
Those species of seal that need ice for resting, pup rearing and molting, will also be at risk. [92]

For More on Mass Extinctions See Coral Bleaching and Disintegration

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

Floods
National Climatic Data Center (NOAA) director Thomas Karl predicts that global warming will produce more floods due to increases in precipitation extremes. [74]

Global warming will disrupt precipitation patterns.  We're going to see yet more extreme precipitation events. A report issued in the fall of 1999 (San Francisco Examiner, November 7, 1999) by Britain's Meteorological Office warns that flooding will increase about ninefold over the next decades, and 80% of the increased flooding  will occur in South and Southeast Asia.  The report noted that 1998 saw record flooding, with 96 floods in 55 countries.  [70]

The IPCC now estimates that temperatures might reach as high as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of  this century. Such temperature increases may lead to the flooding of more than 2 million square miles of coastal lands, displacing millions of people in Bangladesh, Egypt, China, Indonesia and very likely many in the U.S., of which 50% of the U.S population lives on or near coastal areas. 

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More Intense Hurricanes on the Way

NOAA Image Weather Channel

                                                    Hurricane Katrina Hitting New Orleans August 31, 2005

The warmer this planet gets, the warmer the Atlantic Ocean gets, bringing warmer and more moist ocean air, the fuel of hurricanes. This is why scientists and insurers fear climate change will worsen hurricanes.

The deadliest hurricanes, that is, category 4 and 5 hurricanes (See Saffir-Simpson Scale), have, during the period 1990 through 2004, almost doubled, since the period 1970 - 1985. That is, globally there has been an increase of an annual average of 10 to an annual rate of 18 category 4 and 5 hurricanes, during the years 1990 through 2004. The increase in intensity of hurricanes is the direct result of an increase in water temperature of .5 to 1 degree Fahrenheit says researcher Professor Peter Webster and other researchers. (See September 16, 2005 article in the journal Science)

As the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Administrator D. James Baker says, “Our climate is warming at a faster rate than ever before recorded. Ignoring climate change and the most recent warming patterns could be costly to the nation. Small changes in global temperatures can lead to more extreme weather events including, droughts, floods and hurricanes.”  [72]  If small changes in temperatures can effect our climate in such a big way, consider that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change now says that the temperature increase by the end of this century might reach 11 degrees Fahrenheit. [73]  Comparatively, since the depths of the last ice age 18,000 to 20,000 years ago, the increase in temperature has been about 5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit.

Saffir-Simpson Scale
Category 1 -Winds 74-95 mph. Storm surge generally 4-5 ft above normal
Category 2 - Winds 96-110 mph. Storm surge generally 6-8 feet above normal
Category 3 - Winds 111-130 mph. Storm surge generally 9-12 ft above normal
Category 4 - Winds 131-155 mph. Storm surge generally 13-18 ft above normal
Category 5 - Winds greater than 155 miles an hour

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Heat Waves

Heat waves in August, 2003 caused an estimated 50000 deaths in Europe (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration), 15,000 in France alone.  Three British researchers, Peter A. Stott of the University of Reading, and D.A. Stone and M.R. Allen of Oxford University, concluded that by the 2040s, half of Europe's summers are likely to be warm as Europe's 2003 killer heat wave. (See Washington Post Article December 2, 2004)

In a statement several years ago by Dr. Thomas Karl at an Ozone Action roundtable, said, “High temperatures are likely to become more extreme, and because night temperatures will increase by at least as much as daytime temperatures, heat waves should become more serious. [75]  The EPA points to one study that projects in New York City the probability of a 1°F warming which could more than double heat-related deaths during a typical summer, from about 300 today to over 700.  [76]

The following is an excerpt taken from a report by lead author Dr. Thomas Karl and other researchers: ‘It now seems probable that warming will accompany changes in regional weather. For example, longer and more intense heat waves-a likely consequence of an increase in either the mean temperature or in the variability of daily temperatures-would result in public health threats and even unprecedented levels of mortality.’ [77]

"High temperatures are likely to become more extreme, and because night temperatures will increase by at least as much as daytime temperatures, heat waves should become more serious," notes Dr. Tom Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center (NOAA). Already we have seen killer heat waves that caused over 500 heat-related deaths in Chicago (1995) and over 250 deaths in the eastern U.S., during a period of hot weather in the fall of 1999.

World Meteorological Organization Secretary General Godwin Obasi says, “In 15 U.S. mega-cities, deaths from heatstroke during an average summer have risen significantly  in the last decade. They have now reached about 1500. But our projection is that by 2020 there could be 3000-4000 deaths in the U.S. alone.”[65]

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Increasing Power Outages or Rolling Blackouts
More intense heat waves will have a further impact. More severe heat waves will bring heavy use of air-conditioning, increasing the probability of more blackouts, as power grids are strained beyond the limit.

The combination of increasing severity of heat waves, together with a trend of electricity supply not keeping pace with demand, ultimately will lead to increases in blackouts.

In a CNN.com article on July 1, 2000, 'Heat waves likely to bring more rolling blackouts', it was reported that U.S. consumption of electricity has risen 35% during the past decade, while newly generated electric power has risen by only 18%. "During the last several summers (as of July, 2000) utilities in some parts of the country have been stretched to the limit," says Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. (68)

A study by the New York think tank, Allied Business Intelligence (ABI), says that in the next ten years, energy sources will be insufficient to meet demand throughout the U.S., except for Middle America. With a robust economy spurring the building industry, especially plans currently anticipating the building of half a million new commercial buildings annually, demand for energy is swiftly outpacing supply. According to ABI, 150 gigawatts (150 billion watts) will be needed by 2007 in the U.S. Plans call for meeting only half of that demand, says ABI.  (66)

The Alliance to Save Energy, a coalition of business, environmental, consumer and government leaders, says that a continuing trend of higher temperatures and more severe heat waves will have a role in producing more blackouts in the coming years. [71]

On June 24, 2003 Italian utilities ordered power cuts for the first time since 1981, as a heat wave pushed the national power grid close to collapse. Further blackouts were planned into July. The blackouts resulted from a nationwide heavy demand in use of air conditioners and fans, affecting 6 million people. The unrelenting heat and an accompanying drought have disrupted Italian electricity production, as diminished water power has impacted hydroelectric plants. Demand for electricity set a new summer Italian record of 52,000 megawatts.  See Environmental News Network Story
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Forests and Wildfires
As climate change progresses, weakened forests would give way to grasslands, and many forest species, some already endangered, would fade away. As some studies indicate, New England will become too warm to sustain maple forests. The EPA expects that by 2050 the range of sugar maple will extend so far north, that only a fraction of it will remain in New England. [27]  If carbon dioxide levels double in the atmosphere, there is a likelihood that the United States could experience a loss of 40% of its forests. [17]

If warming becomes severe, large areas of forest could become stressed by lack of water, increasing its vulnerability to pests and disease, thus increasing their exposure to fire. Loss of forests by fire not only throws millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but obviously loses the capacity to absorb carbon dioxide. Fire seasons may very well become longer. As Thomas Karl, director of the National Climate Data Center says,"Forest productivity is likely to increase over the next several decades in some areas as trees respond to higher carbon dioxide levels. Over the longer term, changes in larger-scale processes such as fire, insects, droughts, and disease will possibly decrease forest productivity. In addition, climate change will cause long-term shifts in forest species, such as sugar maples moving north out of the US."  (See testimony by Tom Karl before US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation)

California's Sierra Nevada forests are threatened by lack of snowfall and rain as average temperatures climb higher. In a study released August 6, 2007 by the US Geological Survey's Western Ecological Research Center, researchers Phillip J. van Mantgem and Nathan L. Stephenson determined that tree deaths in Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks increased between 1983 and 2004 by a factor of 3% per year, almost double the tree mortality within 21 years. These forests are located in arid regions of California, but climate change has made these areas even drier, weakening trees and increasing their susceptibility to fires and bark beetles.

(Note: Sometimes referenced articles are not available)

In a report on NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) web site, Dr. James Hansen says, “... that global warming, paradoxically, increases both extremes of the hydrologic cycle. It causes more intense droughts and forest fires, but, at other places and times, it causes heavier rainfall, more intense storms fueled by latent heat of water vapor, and greater flooding.”  [78]

 George M Woodwell, director of Woods Hole Research Center says, “These direct effects of climatic changes will be amplified by the expansion of the ranges of insect pests of forests, diseases of trees, and the increased frequency of fires already observed.  [79]

We are becoming more vulnerable to wildfires, such as that which occurred in Florida during the summer heat wave of 1998. About 2000 fires rampaged over 480,000 acres, damaging or destroying more than 367 homes and businesses, while injuring more than 100 people.

Richard Betts and other scientists at Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Britain have developed a model which shows that if the current trend in warming continues, large tracts of the Amazon will die off by end of this century. The model demonstrated a radical warming that surpassed earlier predictions of a hotter and drier Amazon. Rising global temperatures could transform one-third of the rainforest to grassland or bare soil by 2099.  [49]

Higher temperatures in Alaska 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 3 million acres of white spruce on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. Studying the problem, entomologist, Kenneth Raffa says, "The trees have a naturally occurring insecticide in their resin, but that's ineffective against an attack this large." This forest is now highly vulnerable to fire, which could, of course, spread to adjacent healthy forests. [52]

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 (2002-03) 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. As on the Kenai Peninsula (see above), this could make the British Columbia forests more vulnerable to fire. See Planet Ark story for more detail. (Note: Sometimes referenced articles are not available)

Global Warming, Forests & Bark Beetles
Higher temperatures in Alaska 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 3 million acres of white spruce on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. Studying the problem, entomologist, Kenneth Raffa says, "The trees have a naturally occurring insecticide in their resin, but that's ineffective against an attack this large." This forest is now highly vulnerable to fire, which could, of course, spread to adjacent healthy forests. [52]

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 (2002-03) 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. As on the Kenai Peninsula (see above), this could make the British Columbia forests more vulnerable to fire. See Planet Ark story for more detail. (Note: Sometimes referenced articles are not available)

Warmer winters in Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park are also finding healthier populations of bark beetles in whitebark pines, one of  the main food sources for grizzly bears. See NRDC Report With whitebark pines threatened by extinction, we could lose the remaining 1000 grizzly bears, now living mostly in Yellowstone and Glacier National Park.

Colorado's Rocky Mountains are losing to pine bark beetles as they decimate millions of trees at altitudes where these insects had never reached before. Read more about the threat these beetles pose and listen to a report by Aspen NPR's Kurt Stiegler.

Threat to Boreal Forests

Boreal forests extend across two continents along the subarctic latitudes and occupy about 14.5 percent of Earth's land surface. These forests cover an area estimated 6.4 million square miles (16.6 million square kilometers) or almost twice the size of the United States.  They reach across Alaska, Canada, Scotland, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia and are on the way to becoming, like its neighboring biome, the tundra, a net emitter of carbon dioxide. 

The boreal forests in North America stretch across the top of the continent from interior Alaska to Newfoundland, and from the tundra to temperate forests and grasslands hundreds of miles south. There are in this region 1.4 billion acres of forest (mostly in Canada) reaching an area almost 6800 miles wide, enough to hold 14 Californias.

Since the 1960’s forest fires in North America’s Boreal forests have doubled to about 7.6 million acres burned annually, and bark beetles have contributed by killing vast stretches of forest. In Russia boreal forests are much larger than in North America, and an estimated 25 million acres of forest burn annually. “The more death (from bark beetles) and destruction you have in these forests, the more fires you will have and the more carbon you will see released into the atmosphere,” says Benjamin Preston, senior research fellow at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

<>While the lower moderate latitudes have seen temperature increases of a little over 1 degree Fahrenheit, the subarctic regions have seen about a 4 degree increase. Ed Holsten ,an entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Alaska says, "In Alaska, the distribution of plants and animals is controlled by climate," said Holsten. "Any subtle change in temperature will affect insects. Spruce bark beetles usually have a two-year cycle, but warmer temperatures can cause them to complete their cycle in one year. So a lot more are being bred at one time." The high temperatures have increased the survivability of bark beetles in the boreal forests. In Alaska the survival rate of beetle larvae of the spruce bark beetle during the winter months has increased, while also speeding their maturing process. As a result, there are greater populations of this beetle that have destroyed about 3 million acres of white spruce on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. Studying the problem, University of Wisconsin entomologist, Kenneth Raffa says, "The trees have a naturally occurring insecticide in their resin, but that's ineffective against an attack this large." [52] This forest is now highly vulnerable to fire, which could, of course, spread to nearby healthy forests. <>

In 2002 a report noted that in British Columbia, tree-killing pine beetles were spreading rapidly through the forests in this, Canada's largest lumber exporting province. Warmer winters have aided these beetles, and their numbers have escalated, so that 9 million acres (3.6 million hectares) of forests were infested, and have now destroyed up 108 million cubic metres of lodgepole pine timber. "This is clearly an epidemic of catastrophic proportion," said Larry Pedersen, British Columbia's chief forester.

In Canada British Columbia officials noted in an October, 2003 report, Timber Supply and the Mountain Pine Beetle Infestation in British Columbia, that beetle infestation was fast spreading through its forests. As the upward trend of temperatures continues, Canada may see even more severe beetle devastation in their forest stands, while continuing to increase the degree of exposure to forest fires.

David Schindler, professor at University of Alberta says that it took 65 million years for the boreal forest to evolve, and that it is a monumental tragedy that we are seeing the decline of these majestic forests. “I can only hope,” says Schindler, “that we see the light and change our ways before the boreal is gone forever.”

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Sea Level Rise of 3 feet by 2100

In the recent past the IPCC projected a sea level rise of 6 inches to 37 inches by 2100. On March 24, 2006 researchers said in a report, Paleoclimatic Evidence for Future Ice-Sheet Instability and Rapid Sea-Level Rise, in the Journal Science that accelerating meltdown of Antarctic and Arctic ice, along with melting Greenland glaciers will increase sea level rise perhaps by more than 3 feet. The scientists say that anticipated Arctic warming of 4 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, will be at least as warm as it was 130,000 years, when sea level was 20 feet higher.

Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona, and Bette Otto-Bliesner, at the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, led separate research teams and combined data to make this report. "This is a real eye-opener set of results," said geoscientist Overpeck.  "We need to start serious measures to reduce greenhouse gases within the next decade, (and) if we don't do something soon, we're committed to 4 to 6 meters (13 to 20 feet) of sea level rise in the future." Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton geoscientist and member of the university's Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences Program, said, "These are important papers, because they provide new insights into the effects of temperature change on melting ice at both poles. They show how even modest increases in global temperatures could put the Earth in a dangerous spot.  Researcher Otto-Bliesner noted, "These ice sheets have melted before and sea levels rose. The warmth needed isn't that much above present conditions." USA Today Article & Guardian article by Ian Sample  & National Center for Atmospheric Research and UCAR Office of Programs

Sea Level Rise & Impact on Island States
  * An article in the fall, 1996 issue of the Earth Island Journal reported that rising seas are about to inundate Pate and Ndau, two small islands near the Indian Ocean resort island of Lamu. Kenya has announced plans to spend $517,000 to build walls shielding these islands from the rising surf.

*  In June, 1997, Jacob Nena, president of Micronesia said some of his country's smaller atolls have been abandoned due to rising seas. In addition to rising sea levels, the highly populated atoll of Nuduoro has been victimized by floods due to increasing storm activity, a symptom of global warming.

* The Maldives environmental minister, Abdul Rasheed Hussain, said that his country's tourism industry is threatened by constant erosion of its beaches. Noted in the San Francisco Chronicle (June 25, 1997).

* Government officials of the islands, Antigua and Bermuda, in the Caribbean, are convinced that global warming is the cause of a number of recent hurricanes including a 1994 storm that wiped out virtually the entire economy. Noted in San Francisco Chronicle article of February 11, 1997.

* The island state of Kiribati (population, 100,000) is being threatened with rising seas, engulfing homes and crops. These are rising sea levels, surges during sunny weather. Says one islander, "It's nice weather, and all of a sudden water is pouring into your living room. NPR's Living on Earth spotlights a discussion of the threat to Kiribati - Listen to the program or view the transcript

* Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, where islets are in some places only as wide as the two-lane road that traverses each of them, a single wave often sprays the country from coast to coast. The cost of protecting the capital alone with a seawall would be insurmountable, costing up to three times the total national economic output.

* In November, 2000 Teleke P. Lauti, assistant minister of natural resources and environment of Tuvalu, traveled to The Hague, Netherlands to plead to those negotiating the final draft of the Kyoto Protocol. Tuvalu is an island state, comprising a number of low-lying islands, altogether about 1/7th the size of Washington D.C.and located directly west of Australia and north of New Zealand. He told negotiators that his country faces the threat of storm surges that wash directly across the entire island. It is happening now. As the fate of Tuvalu and its 10,000 inhabitants seems hopeless against the encroaching waters, the government of Tuvalu is weighing whether or not to purchase land in another country. Mr. Lauti says, "When a cyclone hits us, there is no place to escape. We cannot climb any mountains or move away to take refuge. It is hard to describe the effects of a cyclonic storm surge when it washes right across our islands. I would not want to wish this experience anyone."  (67) .......... Among the small islands of Tuvalu, rising seas have already endangered sacred sites. Rising seas have seeped into some islands' croplands, making it too salty to grow vegetables. Tuvalu farmers are now beginning to grow their taro crops not in traditional pits, but in tin containers filled with compost.

* Who  is responsible for the needs of future climate change refugees, such as citizens of Tuvalu and Kiribat, Bangladeshi, the Maldives and other countries. Who should be paying for land purchases for the new homes of these people? The industrial countries are without doubt the ones who have brought this calamity onto the planet, and they are the ones who are ultimately responsible. New homes for the islanders should be financed by the developed world. Many of the island nations and other developing countries will not be able to overcome the latest projections in sea level rise, and they should find a way to bring their present and future losses to resolve in international courts.

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

Sea Level Rise & Climate Change Refugees
In November, 2000 Teleke P. Lauti, assistant minister of natural resources and environment of Tuvalu, traveled to The Hague, Netherlands to plead to those negotiating the final draft of the Kyoto Protocol. Tuvalu is an island state, comprising a number of low-lying islands, altogether about 1/7th the size of Washington D.C.and located directly west of Australia and north of New Zealand. He told negotiators that his country faces the threat of storm surges that wash directly across the entire island. It is happening now. As the fate of Tuvalu and its 10,000 inhabitants seems hopeless against the encroaching waters, the government of Tuvalu is weighing whether or not to purchase land in another country. Mr. Lauti says, "When a cyclone hits us, there is no place to escape. We cannot climb any mountains or move away to take refuge. It is hard to describe the effects of a cyclonic storm surge when it washes right across our islands. I would not want to wish this experience on anyone."  (67) Listen (or view the transcript) to NPR's Living on Earth as people of Tuvalu talk about moving to New Zealand to escape the rising seas 

In Bangladesh 144 million people are living in a region the size of Wisconsin, much of it close to sea level and already severely affected by storm surges.

The Maldives, a country of about 300,000 people live on a multitude of  islands, 80% of which are situated less than 1 meter above mean sea level. About half of those islands that are inhabited are already seeing various degrees of  erosion.

According to an Australian government financed study (circa May, 2003) the largely poor and low-lying islands of the South Pacific will be hardest hit with flooding. Most affected would be the Papua New Guinea islands, Micronesia and Kiribati.  If sea levels rise by 32 inches by 2085 as some scientific models predict, 170,000 people across the South Pacific could be exposed annually to flooding compared with around 5,000 now. See Planetark Article of May 12, 2003 (Note: Sometimes referenced articles are not available)

Since the industrial countries have produced most of the atmospheric greenhouse gases, a substantial portion of the care of these new climate change refugees will be the moral responsibility of the developed countries. That means the industrial countries will likely be spending  billions of dollars in not only purchasing land, but perhaps housing and feeding refugees of sea level rise. 

Sea Level Rise & Impact on US Cities
As of March 24, 2006 with the combined research of Jonathan T. Overpeck, Bette L. Otto-Bliesner yielding their formidable projections, (in the journal Science, Paleoclimatic Evidence for Future Ice-Sheet Instability and Rapid Sea-Level Rise), of a possible 20 foot increase in sea level, we have to recalibrate the impacts on US cities. The following projections were written before the Science study:

Studies by EPA and others have estimated that along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, a one foot (30 cm) rise in sea level is likely by 2050 and could occur as soon as 2025. The EPA says that major port cities with low areas include Boston, New York, Charleston, Miami, and New Orleans . The average elevation of New Orleans is about 2 meters below sea level, and parts of Texas City, San Jose, and Long Beach, California are about one meter below sea level. Says former NOAA Administrator, Dr. James Baker, “In fact, an international organization of scientists ranked New Orleans as the North American city most vulnerable to climate change. Therefore, the topic of global warming is especially relevant here.”

Sea level rise along the U.S. coasts is likely to be somewhat greater than the global average. The EPA study includes a set of projections that coastal residents can use to calculate how much sea level will rise in specific communities. Along the coast of New York, which typifies the U.S. Coastlines, sea level is likely to rise 10 inches by 2050 and almost 2 feet by 2100. According to the EPA there is also a 1 percent chance of a two foot rise by 2050, a 4 foot rise by 2100, and a 15 foot by the year 2200. The EPA also says that a one foot rise in sea level could occur as early as 2025. The coast of California, which sits higher off the water than most Atlantic coastlines, for instance, could easily weather a sea-level rise of several inches. Coastlines along the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, on the other hand, would be devastated.

“Even with current global populations, a 20-inch rise in sea level without adaptive measures directly threatens 92 million people. Making matters worse, Americans are moving to coastal areas at a rate of 3,600 each day,” says Dr. James Baker. (April 18, 2000) Pertaining to the threat to the San Francisco Bay Area, the Oakland nonprofit research group, Pacific Institute, says that major damaging storms would become more frequent before a sea level rise of one meter is reached. Very likely by the time sea level rise reaches 6 inches, a 1-in-100 year storm will become a 1-in-10 year storm at the entrance to the Bay.

Steve Dunn, a deputy project manager at The Heinz Center in Washington, D.C., which recently completed a major study of U.S. coastal erosion, says that coastal areas along the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern U.S. are far more prone to coastal erosion than other parts of the country. (Note: Sometimes referenced articles are not available)

According to the Environmental Protection Agency sea level will continue to rise for several centuries, even if global temperatures were to stop rising by 2020. (89)

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Coastal Wetlands

Wetlands are marshy, swampy places that filter and cleanse drinking water, retain floodwater, harbor freshwater fish and shellfish and support other wildlife. They are rest stops and food sources for migrating birds. If wetlands are lost, floods and pollution will worsen, as well as biodiversity.

Scientists predict that global warming will possibly raise sea levels 6 to 37 inches by the year 2100. [4]  As sea levels rise, sea water will invade coastal groundwater, making it salty, and also invade wetlands and coastal property. As it stands now one-third of the world's population lives in countries with moderate to severe problems in access to fresh water. This may grow to two-thirds by 2025. Small island states and countries like Indonesia, Samoa, Bangladesh and Egypt are highly vulnerable to sea level rise. Biologist Larry Harris says, "that if the sea rises 2 to 3 feet, the entire Florida Everglades will be lost." [11]  We stand to lose much of our wetland areas with an incursion of sea water. If this planet loses wetland areas such as the Chesapeake Bay, Mai Po Marshes (Hong Kong), and other coastal wetlands in Malaysia, Uruguay, Australia and many other countries, we stand to lose millions of birds, also. [12]  Most bird species are already in trouble, with two-thirds of all bird species on the decline. [8]  And with many species of birds threatened by wetlands loss, we stand to lose much in the way of ocean life since marshes serve as indispensable marine nurseries.

Sea levels have risen more in the past 100 years than the previous 1000 years, and are beginning to cover up bird habitats in coastal areas says Stephen Leatherman, director of the University of Maryland’s Laboratory for Coastal Research.

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U.S. Coasts

The following is an excerpt taken from the Union of Concerned Scientists magazine, Nucleus, (fall, 1998 issue): A 20-inch rise in sea level could inundate considerable coastal land and reduce the extent of US coastal wetlands by almost half. Barrier islands, low-lying coasts with high tides, and port cities on unstable or subsiding land may be at risk from flooding, erosion, and more frequent storm surges. Salt water will intrude further into estuaries and aquifers, harming wetland species and compromising water supplies. The Gulf states, Atlantic coast south of Cape Cod, and San Francisco Bay will be most vulnerable, says the Union of Concerned Scientists.

San Francisco Bay-Example of Cost Impact of Sea Level Rise on Community
In a study of the San Francisco Bay Area by the Oakland nonprofit research group, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security and the Stockholm Environment Institute, the following conclusions were reached:

• A one-meter increase in sea level would threaten residential and business property valued at $48 billion (1990 dollars).
• Major damaging storms would become more frequent before a sea level rise of one meter is reached. Very likely by the time sea level rise reaches 6 inches, a 1-in-100 year storm will become a 1-in-10 year storm at the entrance to the Bay.
• Protective structures in anticipation of a one meter sea level rise would cost more than $940 million (1990 dollars). Maintenance of these structures would cost about $100 million annually.
• Loss of groundwater quality in some basins around the Bay will occur as sea level rises.
• Loss of wetland areas around the Bay would be certain.

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Spread of Infectious Diseases
Climate change is already threatening the planet with a spread of infectious diseases, which will move farther northward and to higher elevations. The World Health Organization projects tens of millions more cases of malaria and other infectious diseases. "The spread of infectious diseases will be the most important public health problem related to climate change," states Jonathan Patz, a John Hopkins microbiologist who is working on the issue at the U.S Environmental Protection Agency. [14]  Dr. Paul Epstein of the Harvard Medical School says, "If tropical weather is expanding, it means that tropical diseases will expand. We're seeing malaria in Houston, Texas." [15]  While insects are proliferating, carrying these diseases, three-fourths of all birds species are on the decline. [55] We are losing our first line of defense against the threat of disease-carrying insects. In addition, 26 percent of bat species are threatened with extinction. [8]  Bat colonies in Texas can eat 250 tons of insects each night. [16]  The loss of many species of birds and bats, while insects proliferate, could lead to an escalation of the use of pesticides, threatening yet more damage to the world's animal species, including ourselves.

Escalating Increase in Allergens
In experiments with ragweed, where CO2 was doubled, at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, it was revealed that the growth of ragweed increased 10%, but the pollen went up 60%. (On June 26, 2006 NPR's Fresh Air Host, Terry Gross, Interviewed Dr.Paul Epstein, associate director of the Harvard Medical School). Epstein says in the interview, "We're seeing ivy and weeds and plants that are opportunistic seize on this disturbance of more CO2, make more of themselves and make more toxicity, and this is something that is happening in the plants, it's happening in the animals. It's happening in the oceans with more algae and jellyfish.".... "What we've found is that the weedy species are responding disproportionately. The opportunists, just as in the animal kingdom we see some of the mosquitoes and bugs and rodents responding, we see opportunistic species in the plant world, like poison ivy, responding to carbon dioxide, making more of itself, growing and also making more toxic chemical within it that's more allergenic."

Dr. Epstein describes how the pollen is spread by attaching itself to diesel particles in the air...."we're seeing synergies among the diesel particles that come out of trucks and buses, so very high rates of asthma along bus and truck routes in Harlem and in Roxbury and so on. Turns out diesel particles are the delivery system for these pollen and spores. They help deliver it.......They deliver it deep into the lung sacs, and they actually irritate--they have nitrate in them so they irritate the immune cells so they increase the allergic reaction.... We've known that diesel particles themselves affect the lungs and can irritate them and cause allergic symptoms. Now it looks as if there's this--they glob onto these aeroallergens and help deliver them and sensitize the lungs to their impacts."

Terry Gross asks  Dr. Epstein, "Do you think there's a connection between global warming and asthma? 
Answers Epstein , "Well, I believe there is, and there are--so there are several ways in which these various components are working. You've got the aeroallergens just from CO2. You've got diesel particles from burning fossil fuels as well. Then you have the change in the season, so climate change is affecting the seasons, and we're seeing early arrival of asthma and allergy season. Then there's another issue, which is ozone, ugly ozone, the ground level photochemicals smog, and that's a reaction between tailpipe emissions that sped up with warming, so we're seeing warming counteract some of the attempts to reduce ozone......Then there's another one that's really hit us by surprise. We're seeing dust storms come off of Africa from where the deserts are forming that are the size of the continental US, and the desertification is due to overgrazing but also to the warm sea surface temperatures that you've heard so much about. So we're seeing climate affect Africa. It's affecting actually China in ways that's sending dust storms to the West Coast, and in the Caribbean...

Global Warming And Asthma

On June 26, 2006 NPR's Fresh Air Host, Terry Gross, Interviewed Dr.Paul Epstein, associate director of the Harvard Medical School.

Terry Gross asks  Dr. Epstein, "Do you think there's a connection between global warming and asthma? 
Answers Epstein , " Well, I believe there is, and there are--so there are several ways in which these various components are working. You've got the aeroallergens just from CO2. You've got diesel particles from burning fossil fuels as well. Then you have the change in the season, so climate change is affecting the seasons, and we're seeing early arrival of asthma and allergy season. Then there's another issue, which is ozone, ugly ozone, the ground level photochemicals smog, and that's a reaction between tailpipe emissions that sped up with warming, so we're seeing warming counteract some of the attempts to reduce ozone...... Then there's another one that's really hit us by surprise. We're seeing dust storms come off of Africa from where the deserts are forming that are the size of the continental US, and the desertification is due to overgrazing but also to the warm sea surface temperatures that you've heard so much about. So we're seeing climate affect Africa. It's affecting actually China in ways that's sending dust storms to the (US) West Coast, and in the Caribbean."...........

"And they--in terms of the Atlantic, they are seeming to be swept across along the same pathway of warm salty sea surface water that's sweeping these hurricanes, like Katrina and Rita and so on, is also accelerating the pathway of these dust storms. So they're reaching Barbados and Trinidad and also Florida--kids in Miami.

And in these islands, asthma was unheard of. It was less than 1 percent, and that's why those of us from the north that could afford to would go there for clean air and so on. What we're seeing now is 25 percent of the kids have asthma on islands like Trinidad, studied by a woman pediatrician there, and they peak during these dust storms. The dust storms also introduce organisms that infect the coral in the Caribbean, the fan coral. So here's another dimension of climate and global change that's affecting our air quality. So we've got the carbon dioxide itself from burning fossil fuels. We've got the particles from fossil fuels. We've got the climate changing from fossil fuels. We've got the ozone from fossil fuels. And now the aggregate of climate change that's been created by this blanket of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases is contributing to the various components of bringing on seasonal change, as well as the photochemical smog."

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Coral Bleaching  & Disintegration

"If we continue at the current rate of deforestation and destruction of major ecosystems like rainforests and coral reefs, where most of the biodiversity is concentrated, we will surely lose more than half of all the species of plants and animals on earth by the end of the 21st century." E.O.Wilson, interviewed by Audubon's Boyce Rensberger

In a 2005 study the World Conservation Union (IUCN) reports that about 50% of the world’s coral reefs “may be lost within the next 40 years unless urgent measures are taken to protect them against the paramount threat of climate change.” Also in 2005, at a scientific conference on climate change in Exeter, U.K, it was determined that “an increase of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit is likely to lead to extensive coral bleaching.” A book that was derived from the conference, Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, reported that such a rise in temperature would lead to the destruction of critical fish nurseries in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia.(See Washington Post article) "By and large, reefs have collapsed catastrophically just in the three decades that I've been studying them," said Nancy Knowlton, a marine biology professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change says, “Coral reefs are striking, complex, and important features of the marine environment… If we fail to act, the destruction of these rare and important ecosystems will continue unabated, threatening one of our world’s most precious natural resources.”

Coral death can come by way of increased ocean temperatures resulting in coral bleaching. Coral is very sensitive to increased water temperature, which can stress them temporarily. But if chronically stressed with long-term surface water temperatures, they will lose their symbiotic algae, which gives the coral color and nutrients. Losing the algae the coral turns white or bleached in appearance. In a persistent bleached state, over the long haul, the coral will die. Compounding the threat to coral by bleaching is the increased acidity of sea surface waters brought about by increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, according to researcher Joan Kleypas, "Some reef communities that occur in deeper waters, for example, may not experience the severity of coral bleaching that we see in the shallower reefs."

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change released a report, Coral reefs and Global climate change, in February, 2004, that said:
Increases in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuel combustion will drive changes in surface ocean chemistry. The higher the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, the greater the amount of CO2 dissolved in the surface ocean. Higher dissolved CO2 increases ocean acidity and lowers the concentration of carbonate which corals and other marine organisms use, in the form of calcium carbonate, to build their skeletons. Thus, continued growth in human emissions of CO2 will further limit the ability of corals to grow and recover from bleaching events or other forms of stress. (Report  authors are Drs. Robert W. Buddemeier, Joan A. Kleypas, and Richard B. Aronson)

In a study, Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms, reported September, 2005 in the science journal, Nature, lead author, James C. Orr, et al, say that in addition to the destructive effect of lower levels of calcium carbonate on corals, it is also a threat to some plankton also maintaining their external calcium carbonate skeletons. The threat to plankton could reverberate up the food chain.

In a June 2006 report from a workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Geological Survey, authors Joan A. Kleypas, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Richard A. Feely of the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, NOAA, Victoria J. Fabry, California State University San Marcos and other researchers delved further into the increasing acidification of the oceans. In the report’s Executive Summary, it stated that oceanic uptake of CO2 drives the carbonate system to lower pH and lower saturation states of the carbonate minerals calcite, aragonite, and high-magnesium calcite, the materials used to form supporting skeletal structures in many major groups of marine organisms. Scientists noted in the study that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide worked to change a normally alkaline ocean into an ocean increasingly acidic. Restating the previous paragraph the increased carbon dioxide lowered the carbonate ions in the oceans, leading to a reduction in the calcium carbonate, which constitute the building blocks of marine species that depend on outer skeletal structure such as coral and plankton. Several groups of calcifying plankton—coccolithophorids (single-celled algae), forams, and pteropods (planktonic molluscs)—also exhibit a reduction in their calcium carbonate structures. Many of these organisms are important components of the marine food web. Joan Kleypas’s findings in previous studies shows that calcium carbonate will decrease up to about 30% if atmospheric carbon dioxide doubles, which is expected around mid-century.

Coral reefs have existed for about 200 million years, having survived eons of storm damage, marine animal predation and diseases. (Source: US State Department) But as the years go by, with the continuing upward trend in temperatures, except for coral situated in very deep ocean depths, their survival is doubtful.

According to the Worldwatch Institute publication, "State of the World 2000," reefs include only 0.3 percent of the ocean area, but "one out of every four ocean species thus far identified is a reef-dweller, including at least 65 percent of marine fish species.”(Also See US State Department web site)  As has been pointed out many times, coral is our undersea rainforest, pointing to the abundance of species. Coral reefs of the Florida Keys sustain 500 species of fish, more than 1700 species of mollusks, five species of sea turtles, and hundreds of species of sponges. [124]  The Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia is an expansive area of coral, consisting of 3000 reefs and home to 1500 species of fish, 4000 types of mollusks. China’s Sanya National Coral Reef Nature Reserve harbors more than 300 species of fish and 300 invertebrates (i.e. crustaceans and mollusks). 

In the early 1980's, coral bleaching devastated 70 percent of the coral along the Pacific Central American coast. Corals offshore the Maldives, Bahrain, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Tanzania have deteriorated, and Caribbean coral is threatened. Extensive coral reef structures near Jamaica, in the Caribbean, have lost their polyps and are now limestone skeletons covered with algae. It is difficult for coral to regenerate itself. Estimates of reef growth range from one to 16 feet every thousand years. (Source: US State Department)

The coral in the Indian Ocean was decimated in 1998. "Scientific reports are indicating we will have no corals left by 2050," says Jude Bijoux, manager of the Seychelles Centre for Marine Research and Technology. "We lost 90 percent of them in 1998 and the little that was left is recovering slowly and is apparently under frequent threat."

In March, 2006 researchers discovered a 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. "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." "It'll not be the same ecosystem," Crabbe said. "The fish will go away. The smaller predators will go away. The invertebrates will go away."

There also exists the threat of more carbon dioxide entering the ocean surface water from increasing atmospheric CO2, the effect of which is to reduce the calcium carbonate that corals and other organisms use to grow their skeletons and build up reefs. The Earth is on a trajectory to double its atmospheric carbon dioxide (above 700 ppm) by the year 2065. Scientists say that this will result in a 30% drop in the amount of carbonate ion concentration that tropical oceans can retain, whereby coral growth would be stunted by the lack of calcium carbonate in these ocean waters. [34]  This would threaten the capability of coral to repair itself in the event of storm damage and from erosion from both physical and biological processes.

.....Robert W. Buddemeier, senior chemist with the Kansas Geological Survey says, "There is growing agreement that doubling CO2 in the atmosphere means a 15% decline in the coral population."[116]

Millions of people depend on coral for income ($400 billion annually in fishing and tourism revenue) and food. [125] These people will not only lose their fishing industry and their livelihoods, but how will these people find the protein also lost among the dead coral.

According to Rupert Ormond, a marine biologist from Glasgow University, the world's coral reefs will be dead within 50 years because of 

global warming, and there is nothing we can do to save them. In a conference held by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he said, "It is hard to avoid the conclusion that most coral in most areas will be lost........We are looking at a loss which is equivalent to the tropical rain forests." He also mentioned that if humans were to stop pumping out greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, tomorrow in a bid to halt the process, it would still be too late to save the reefs. "I don't know what can be done, given that there's a 50-year time lag between trying to limit carbon dioxide levels and any effect on ocean temperature ............"We are looking at a gradual running down of the whole system. Over time, the diversity of coral fish will die," Ormond said. He also said that the only cause for optimism was that new coral reefs could start to emerge in colder waters such as the north Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Humankind will also suffer directly as the dead reefs are eroded and shorelines that have been protected for the last 10,000 years are now vulnerable without their natural defenses.

On June 26, 2006 NPR's Fresh Air Host, Terry Gross, Interviewed Dr.Paul Epstein, associate director of the Harvard Medical School.
Paul Epstein: "We're seeing dust storms come off of Africa from where the deserts are forming that are the size of the continental US, and the desertification is due to overgrazing but also to the warm sea surface temperatures that you've heard so much about.  So we're seeing climate affect Africa.  It's affecting actually China in ways that's sending dust storms to the (US) West Coast, and in the Caribbean."........... "And they--in terms of the Atlantic, they are seeming to be swept across along the same pathway of warm salty sea surface water that's sweeping these hurricanes, like Katrina and Rita and so on, is also accelerating the pathway of these dust storms. So they're reaching Barbados and Trinidad and also Florida--kids in Miami...... The dust storms also introduce organisms that infect the coral in the Caribbean, the fan coral.....These (dust storms) are tracked by NASA, our space agency, so we see them in satellites, and where they're also being tracked now is in the deep oceans, where we see fan coral being infected by fungi that are soil fungi from Africa, and we've traced them with DNA and so on." 

As this generation is among the generations that have contributed to the demise of coral, we must be the ones to begin preserving the great variety in species of the coral reef. If we can sustain in aquariums healthy coral and the species that frequent coral reefs, we can perhaps maintain these species in areas that can be preserved for the future, when oceans are healthy enough to welcome these species back. Gene banks are also an alternative as scientists are presently attempting to preserve the DNA of thousands of endangered species expected to become extinct due to climate change and habitat destruction. See Planet Ark Story

As climate change is accelerating, nations must accelerate their response to it. And the faster we build systems such as wind farms, solar farms, tidal turbines, river turbines, increasing the degree of energy efficiency throughout the US and other countries, the more species we can save.

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

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.

"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

In October, 2000 at the Ninth International Coral Reef Symposium, held on the island of Bali, researchers warned that more than 25% of the world's coral reefs have been destroyed by pollution and global warming. Scientists emphasized that most of the damage to coral is inflicted by global warming through coral bleaching, the result of higher water temperatures heating the coral. The warming waters stress the coral, which then expels the microscopic plants or algae that give the coral color and nourishes it.  Most of the remaining coral could be dead in 20 years, if global warming and pollution continue. Coral reefs around the Maldives and Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean have taken the brunt of warming seas, as 90% of these corals have been killed over the past two years. Some of the coral reefs, long described as undersea rainforests, home to marine ecosystems that sustain thousands of species of fish and other marine life, have been alive for up to 2.5 million years.  [62]

At the Ninth International Coral Reef Symposium, oceanographers said that the El Nino weather pattern two years ago, that led to an increase in ocean water temperature by up to 6 degrees Fahrenheit, did heavy damage to coral reefs. Australian scientist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg warns that in 20 years coral will be sitting in a "hot soup" and will not survive. Millions of people depend on coral for income ($400 billion annually in fishing and tourism revenue) and food.  [62]

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Loss of Arctic Sea Ice
In 1976, the average thickness was 10 feet. Scientists have since discovered that the average thickness of Arctic sea ice during the years from 1993 through 1997 was about six feet, a 40% decrease. Since the ice is already floating in water, there would be no effect on sea level rise. Researchers say that the thinning is continuing at four inches per year. One of the concerns of continuing Arctic sea ice loss, is the loss of the ability to reflect heat into space, and to dilution of the conveyor belt as mentioned above. [40] .....The melting ice could lead to even faster warming, said Ted Scambos of NSIDC [CIRES' National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)][ University of Colorado based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)]. Both sea ice and glacier ice cool Earth, reflecting about 80 percent of springtime solar radiation and 40 percent to 50 percent during summer snowmelt. This is one of the positve feedbacks, where greater loss of sea ice and albedo (the degree of reflecting ability), brings about more warming, leading to greater loss of arctic ice. CERES NASA Web Site See NASA Animation of What Happens When Sea Ice Melts



This graph represents the difference between the findings (the dotted line) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the observed representations from satellite data (the red line), demonstrating that arctic ice is melting at a more rapid pace, greater than the standard deviation predicted by the IPCC. Since 1979 improved techniques make satellite data  more dependable. (Illustration by Steve Deyo, Unitversity Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)

In a April 30, 2007 press release the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) pointed to a more rapid retreat of arctic ice than climate models predicted.  "Because of this disparity, the shrinking of summertime ice is about thirty years ahead of the climate model projections," said NSIDC scientist and co-author Ted Scambos.  See NSIDC Press Release April 30, 2007 See UCAR Page
See EcoBridge page on Positive Feedback of shrinking arctic ice

Jim Hansen, R. Ruedy, M. Sato, and K. Lo of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute determined that of the warming during the 20th century, the greater warming, about .36 degrees Fahrenheit each decade, has occurred since 1975. Another study NASA scientists, released in September, 2006, finds that the world's temperature is reaching a level that has not been seen in thousands of years. The study, led by James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, N.Y., along with scientists from other organizations concludes that, because of the rapid warming trend over the past 30 years, the Earth is now reaching and passing through the warmest levels in the current interglacial period, which has lasted nearly 12,000 years. The study notes that the world's warming is greatest at high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, and it is larger over land than over ocean areas. The enhanced warming at high latitudes is attributed to effects of the melting ice and snow, and the loss of reflecting ability.

The amount of sea ice in the Arctic is shrinking annually by about 14,000 square miles, an area larger than Maryland and Delaware combined. [91] ...The Arctic's sea ice usually covers about 2.4 million square miles at the height of the ice season. During the summer of 2002, measurements showed that the sea ice decreased by nearly a half-million square miles. The flat ice floes left wider sections of open water between them and became extremely thin in many areas reported Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado at the annual fall meeting (December, 2002) of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. [116]

In the Arctic the extent of sea ice has declined by about 30% over the past 130 years. The IPPC says that global warming will reduce the amount of sea ice in the Arctic. At least three computer models are cited. One predicts a 60 per cent loss of summer sea ice if CO2 levels reach double pre-industrial levels. Another model forecasts that 80 per cent of sea ice will be lost by 2050. [92] .... "It is likely that sea ice extent will continue to decline over the 21st century as the climate warms," says University of Colorado research associate Mark Serreze. "With these trends, we may see an approximate 20 percent reduction in the annual mean sea ice by 2050, and by then we might be approaching no ice at all during the summer months."

Rutgers University Professor Alan Robock says “Ice in the ocean which freezes, of course, is saltwater when it freezes. But after it sits around for awhile a lot of the salt is ejected and it becomes fresher. And so when it melts it’s freshwater. And so that means that if the planet warms, there may be a region of the planet, Western Europe, which may actually get colder because of --the Gulf Stream will become weaker.” Read On

Svein Tveitdal, Managing Director of GRID-Arendal which is UNEP's key polar centre said, "The loss of ice in the Arctic could lead to a sudden, acceleration, of global warming. Ice reflects radiation or heat from the sun back into space. Absorbed radiation over snow and ice is three times lower than over land. Reduced ice and snow cover might trigger an accelerated climate change." [88]

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Weather-Related Damage
In November, 1998 Worldwatch Institute, an environmental think-tank in Washington D.C and Munich Re, world's largest insurer announced some startling figures. The dollar damages during 1998 from weather-related disasters (floods, storms, droughts, fires) totaled over $93 billion. Weather-related damages for the entire decade of the 1980's was less than $89 billion. So far, weather-related natural disaster damage totals have soared in the 1990's to $340 billion, a 300% increase over the 1980's.

Disappearing Beaches
This planet has warmed over the past 100 years by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, resulting in an increasing sea level of somewhere between 4 and 10 inches. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has up to recently predicted that with a 2 to 6 degree Fahrenheit increase, there would be a corresponding increase in sea level of 6 to 37 inches. But as of June, 2000 scientists are predicting an estimated temperature increase in the U.S.over the next 100 years of about 5 to 10 degrees F. This may result in a corresponding increase of sea level projections, with much higher estimates than the 6 to 37 inches proposed by the IPCC. On a typical East Coast beach a one foot rise in sea level results in a loss of 50 to 100 feet of land becomes permanently submerged. These latest projections may mean that well before 100 years elapse, we will be losing much of our public beaches.

Damage & Loss of World's Ecosystems & Biomes
According to a recent report by the World Wildlife Fund, a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide may lead to loss of 35% of the world's existing terrestrial habitats, with no certainty there will be replacement ecosystems bringing similar species diversity. 

Tundra
The tundra is a biome (a major segment of a particular region having distinctive vegetation, animals and microorganisms adapted to a unique climate), home to about 1700 kinds of plants, including shrubs, mosses, grasses, lichens and 400 kinds of flowers.

About 50 gigatonnes of carbon are estimated to be held in a frozen state in the tundra, and now the tundra is beginning to become a source of carbon dioxide. In the 1970's University of California biologist Walter Oechel studied carbon dioxide emissions in the tundra, which until this time had been thought of as a carbon sink. Doing further tests in the 1980's, Oechel discovered that this was no longer the case, that warming temperatures had changed the tundra to a net emitter of carbon dioxide. Says Oechel, " We found to our great surprise that the tundra was already losing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. So that by the start of these experiments, which was in 1982, the tundra had already warmed and dried enough, that its historic role as a carbon sink had reversed and changed. It was now losing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. That was totally unexpected."

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Antarctica
Should the West Antarctica ice sheet itself melt, it would lead to sea level rise of about six meters and cause a tremendous impact to coastal cities around the world. [86]

In March 2002 a 1250 square mile section of Larsen B ice shelf broke up into many icebergs. Ice shelves act also as dams, holding back glaciers. When the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed, five of six glaciers increased their movement towards the sea. As ice shelves are already floating, their breakup does not affect sea level rise. However, glaciers ending up in the sea does increase sea level rise. [120]

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Effect on Stratospheric Ozone
The journal Science (May 26, 2000) reports that many scientists worry about the likelihood that greenhouse gases might cause the growth of the Arctic ozone hole, perhaps becoming the size of Antarctica's ozone hole. Colder air forms more of the icy wisps called polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs). The PSCs in turn serve as chemical platforms for the destruction of ozone through a combination of sunlight and some catalytic substance, typically chlorine.[41]

Adding insult to injury the frigid PSCs cause airborne vapors of nitrogen-bearing acids - which ordinarily hinder destruction of ozone - to freeze into inactive forms, a process called "denitrification." This causes further ozone loss.

In the stratosphere above the Arctic there are relatively few PSCs. Reporting in the Science publication, an international team of researchers says that could all change. For Arctic denitrification to take place, Polar stratospheric clouds (also known as nacreous clouds) lifetimes "need to be maintained only for periods of  less than two weeks." If this occurs, ozone loss could go as high as 30%. The reason being, increasing greenhouse gases that capture heat before reflecting out into the stratospheric regions, at an altitude of 10 to 12 miles [41]

Brian Toon, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado and a leader of the team of scientists, said that the PSCs last winter grew larger, colder and longer-lasting than anticipated. The PSCs extend southward each spring threatening ozone loss over densely populated areas of the U.S, Canada and Russia. [42]

Computer models measuring ozone loss were developed by another team of scientists led by Azadeh Tabazadeh,  an atmospheric physicist at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. These models predicted that by 2010, ozone in the stratosphere over the Arctic would thin by up to 30%. [42]

The Arctic is seeing a warming trend and losing sea ice (see above). The loss of sea ice could possibly denigrate the ability to reflect heat into the stratosphere and out into space. Will this further exacerbate a tenuous situation contributing to further buildup of PSCs and more ozone loss?

In a new study by the National Aeronautics and Atmospheric Administration (NASA) computer models show a slowdown in recovery of the ozone layer due to an accelerated chemical reaction from a warming of the lower stratosphere that destroys ozone. Besides CFCs, other pollutants, including the greenhouse gas methane, can interact with ozone to destroy it. Dr.Drew Shindell, an atmospheric scientist from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, used computer simulations to show that as CFCs decline, the ozone layer could make close to a full recovery by 2040, if global warming is not taken into account. But when CFCs, water vapor and temperature changes were combined in a computer model, ozone levels recover only slightly from their current low point by 2040.  (115) "It's hard to tell if those great international agreements [to ban CFCs] work if we don't understand the other big things that are going on in the stratosphere, such as increases in greenhouse gases and water vapor," Shindell said. (See NASA Goddard Space Flight Center). (Note: Sometimes referenced articles are no longer available)

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Effect on World's Food Production
Robert Watson, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned rising temperatures will "cause decreases in agricultural productivity in the tropics and sub-tropics ... areas where we already have hunger."  (82)

The threat to future food supplies from climate change weighs heavily on an expected 2050 world population of 9 billion people. Lester R. Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute and a noted environmental analyst who spent 10 years as a policy adviser in the Department of Agriculture, says, "The vast corn belt of the Northern Hemisphere, for example, will become hotter and dryer, and that change can't be resolved merely by creating new corn belts further north, because the soils further north are not the same at all."...Brown goes onto say, "Each global increase of 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) around the world will reduce grain yields like rice and wheat, as well as corn, by at least 10%."...Brown, noting the threat of water shortages from dwindling aquifers, says, "This disruption by a combination of climate change and water shortages has the potential for creating political instabilities on a scale thsat we can't even forsee." [116]

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects an increase in global mean surface temperatures of about 1.5 to 6.0 degrees C (2.5 to 10.4 degrees F) by 2100. (10) Scientists have issued a warning that increasing temperatures will diminish the yield of basic crops of corn, soybean and rice. In a National Academy of Sciences report abstract (June, 2004), Rice yields decline with higher night temperatures from global warming, it was demonstrated that “grain yield declined by 10% for each 1 degree Celsius increase in growing-season minimum temperature in the dry season, whereas the effect of maximum temperature on crop yield was insignificant. This report provides a direct evidence of decreased rice yields from increased nighttime temperature associated with global warming." 

A study by researchers at the Carnegie Institution shows that over a 17-year period ended 1998 a 1-degree Celsius rise in temperature during the June-August growing season reduces yields of soy bean and corn crops by 17 percent. In their 2003 Science journal report, Climate and Management Contributions to Recent Trends in U.S. Agricultural Yields, the authors, David B. Lobell and Gregory P. Asner say, “As the United States is the largest producer of both corn and soybean in the world, predicted future global production of these crops based on historical trends may be overestimated.”

A Thawing Permafrost and Tundra As Sources of CO2 Emissions

Permafrost
Permafrost is a solid structure of frozen soil, extending to depths of 2.200 feet in some areas of the arctic and subarctic regions,  containing grasses, roots, sticks, much of it dating back to 30,000 years. About 25% of the land areas of the Northern Hemisphere hold permafrost, which is defined as soil whose temperature has been 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) for a period of at least 2 years. Permafrost is under 85% of Alaska land surface and much of Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia and holds about 14 per cent of the world's carbon. The hard permafrost on which is built homes and other buildings, can, with rising temperatures, turn into a soft material causing subsidence and damage to buildings, electric generating stations, pipelines and other structures. Ground instability would cause erosion, affect terrain, slopes, roads, foundations and more. [121]

Svein Tveitdal, Managing Director of the Global Resource Information Database (GRID) in Arendal, Norway, a UNEP environmental information center monitoring the thawing of permafrost, told a meeting at the 21st session of the United Nation's Governing Council in Nairobi, Kenya on February 7, 2001: "Permafrost has acted as a carbon sink, locking away carbon and other greenhouse gases like methane, for thousands of year. But there is now evidence that this is no longer the case, and the permafrost in some areas is starting to give back its carbon. This could accelerate the greenhouse effect." (83)

In a December, 2005 study climate models at National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) show that climate change may thaw the permafrost located in the top 10 feet of permafrost, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. "People have used models to study permafrost before, but not within a fully interactive climate system model," says NCAR's David Lawrence, the lead author. The coauthor is Andrew Slater of the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center. "Thawing permafrost could send considerable amounts of water to the oceans," says Slater, who notes that runoff to the Arctic has increased about 7 percent since the 1930s. According to the NCAR press release (December 19, 2005) permafrost may contain 30% of all the carbon found in soil worldwide. In areas to a depth of 11.2 feet climate models (assuming business as usual scenarios) show permafrost presently in an area of 4,000,000 square miles shrinking to 1,000,000 square miles by 2050 and 400,000 square miles by 2100. With a scenario of low emissions (assuming a high degree use of alternative energy sources and conservation) permafrost is still expected to shrink to 1.5 million miles by 2100.........In a USA Today (December 26, 2005) interview David Lawrence says, "If that much near-surface permafrost thaws, it could release considerable amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and that could amplify global warming," ….."We could be underestimating the rate of global temperature increase."

In a study reported in the journal Science June 16, 2006 (see San Francisco Chronicle article) researchers say that thawing permafrost may add to the buildup in atmospheric greenhouse gases significantly, stating that present climate models do not include releases of Siberian carbon dioxide from permafrost. Dr. Ted Schuur of the University of Florida traveled to Siberia and secured samples of permafrost soil up to 10 feet in length, maintaining it in a frozen state until arriving back in his laboratory, where the thawing soil was attacked by microbes, releasing carbon dioxide in the process. The frightening scenario that scientists, Sergey A. Zimov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ted Schuur and Stuart Chapin III of the University of Alaska, paint is one of hundreds of billions of tons of greenhouse gases entering an already destabilized atmosphere this century, spurring yet more warming in a positive feedback syndrome. Extend this scenario to Alaska,  Canada and Scandinavia, where permafrost underlies much of these regions and there's no other way to describe it. We must escalate our response to climate change.

Tundra
A name very suited to the environs of the arctic and subarctic, tundra means 'treeless plain' in Finnish. The tundra is a biome (a major segment of a particular region having distinctive vegetation, animals and microorganisms adapted to a unique climate), home to about 1700 kinds of plants, including shrubs, mosses, grasses, lichens and 400 kinds of flowers.

About 50 billion tons of carbon are estimated to be held in a frozen state in the tundra, and now the tundra is beginning to become a source of carbon dioxide. In the 1970's University of California biologist Walter Oechel studied carbon dioxide emissions in the tundra, which until this time had been thought of as a carbon sink. Doing further tests in the 1980's, Oechel discovered that this was no longer the case, that warming temperatures had changed the tundra to a net emitter of carbon dioxide. Says Oechel, " We found to our great surprise that the tundra was already losing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. So that by the start of these experiments, which was in 1982, the tundra had already warmed and dried enough, that its historic role as a carbon sink had reversed and changed. It was now losing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. That was totally unexpected."

Disappearing Glaciers

Ice is melting all over the planet. Glaciers are melting on six continents. Because of global warming, the glaciers of the Ruwenzori range in Uganda are in massive retreat. The Bering Glacier, North America's largest glacier, has lost 7 miles of its length, while losing 20-25% of parts of the glacier. Ice cores taken from the Dunde Ice Cap in the Qilian Mountains on the northeastern margin of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau indicate that the years since 1938 have been the warmest in the last 12,000 years.

Pictured above is the Crevasse at Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park. This 10,000 year old glacier is one of 50 glaciers in the park. If present global warming trends continue, all glaciers in Glacier National Park may be gone by 2030.

Antarctica glaciers are now sliding off into the sea - and they are going fast, scientists say. Two separate studies from climate researchers and the space agency NASA show the glaciers are flowing into Antarctica's Weddell Sea, freed by the 2002 breakup of the Larsen B ice shelf. Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, these NASA researchers said their satellite measurements show climate warming can lead to rapid sea level rise. See Planet Ark Story dated September 24, 2004

The melting is accelerating. The Lewis Glacier on Mt. Kenya (In Kenya) has lost 40% of its mass during the period 1963-1987 or at a much faster clip than during 1899-1963. [29]

The Andean ice caps are well on their way to disappearing. Scientists say that 80% of the ice caps, located in this part of the planet near the equater but high in altitude, are expected to melt away by 2020.  Listen to a Living on Earth discussion (or read the transcript) of threatened ice caps and glaciers, and their impact on the water resources of the 30,000 mostly indigenous people of Cotacachi Mountain.

In southern Peru the rate of melting of the Qori Kalis glacier during the 8 year period 1983 to 1991 was 3 times the pace of the previous 20 years, 1963 to 1983. "By the time we probably know what they are doing, it will be far too late to worry about it because they are going to be like galloping glaciers," says Ellen Mosley Thompson, climate expert at Ohio State University. [30]

In a study that appeared in the journal, Science, September 15, 2000, a team led by Lonnie G. Thompson, including Ellen Mosley-Thompson, both of Ohio State, analyzed ice cores that came from deep within a glacier more than 20,000 feet high in the Himalayas. The results of their research showed that the past 100 years have been the hottest period in 1,000 years high in the Himalayas. Also their research supports other studies that demonstrated a dramatic decline in water levels of glacier-fed rivers, and that the high elevations are warming much more than the global average (one degree F). Mosley-Thompson says, "For these rivers to continue to flow year-round, they have to be fed by ice in the high mountains. The question then is where will the river flow come from during the dry season?" [59]

Greenland's glaciers are moving more rapidly to the sea, caused, perhaps, by melt water lubricating the base of the glaciers. See below for another look at dwindling ice mass in Greenland.

The Tasman Glacier in New Zealand has thinned by more than 100 meters in the past century. Glaciers in New Zealand have shrunk about 26% between 1890 and 1998. [54]

The melting of the Gangotri Glacier in India is accelerating with an average rate of retreat of 30 meters annually (See below for WWF report that as of March, 2005 pegs the rate at 23 meters annually). The rate between 1935 and 1990 was 18 meters per year and 7 meters annually between 1842 and 1935. [54]

Mount Kilimanjaro has lost one third of its ice fields in the last two decades and the rest of its ice could disappear by 2015, says geologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University, who has surveyed the peak.  Situated in northeastern Tanzania, near the Kenya border, 5,895 meter (19,340 feet) Kilimanjaro is the highest point in Africa. Professor Thompson says, "The loss of these frozen archives threatens water resources for hydroelectric power production, irrigation for crops and municipal loss of water source water supplies. Moreover, the melting of these smaller ice caps and glaciers leads to sea level rise." ...... "The glaciers are like natural dams," he said. "They store the snow in the wet season and they melt in the dry season and bring water flow to the rivers."  [85]

According to a report released by Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in March, 2005 (See ABC Online News ) hundreds of millions of people in China, India and Nepal face water shortages, due to retreating glaciers. Himalayan glaciers are receding at an accelerating rate, currently at 10-15 meters per year on average, while in India the Gangotri glacier is receding at an average rate of 23 meters per year. The Himalayan glaciers, that feed into seven of Asia's greatest rivers, the Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Huange He, are a year-round water supply  for  millions of people in China and the Indian subcontinent.

The rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers will first increase the volume of water in rivers causing, widespread flooding," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF's global climate change programme....... "But in a few decades this situation will change and the water levels in rivers will decline, meaning massive economic and environmental problems for people in western China, Nepal and Northern India," she said.

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Water Shortages & More Droughts
Currently, over 1 billion people on the planet do not have regular access to fresh water. About twice that number, 2.4 billion people, lack adequate sanitation. Water-related diseases, that are preventable, kill one child every eight seconds, and are responsible for 80% of all illnesses and deaths in the developing world. See June 5, 2003 UN Press Release

Out of all the water on this planet, only 2.5% of it is freshwater. Most of the 2.5% is derived from glaciers and permanent snow cover. See UNESCO Study

In a report on NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) web site, director Dr. James Hansen says, “... that global warming, paradoxically, increases both extremes of the hydrologic cycle. It causes more intense droughts and forest fires, but, at other places and times, it causes heavier rainfall, more intense storms fueled by latent heat of water vapor, and greater flooding.”  [78]

A March, 2005 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) study points to retreating Himalayan Glaciers as threatening severely diminished water availability for 100's of millions of people in China, India and Nepal. The WWF says that the fastest receding glaciers in the world are found in the Himalayas. "The rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers will first increase the volume of water in rivers causing, widespread flooding," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF's global climate change programme. She goes on to say, "But in a few decades this situation will change and the water levels in rivers will decline, meaning massive economic and environmental problems for people in western China, Nepal and Northern India."  See Planet Ark Story

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As mentioned above, Thomas Karl, director of the National Climate Data Center says,"Forest productivity is likely to increase over the next several decades in some areas as trees respond to higher carbon dioxide levels. Over the longer term, changes in larger-scale processes such as fire, insects, droughts, and disease will possibly decrease forest productivity. In addition, climate change will cause long-term shifts in forest species, such as sugar maples moving north out of the US."  (See testimony by Tom Karl before US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation)

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Dr. Dan Cayan, director of the Climate Research Division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, says, "In the West, a lot of our water economy is driven by snowmelt… It takes a lot of physical and political sociological undertakings these days to build a water reservoir. So we're in the West, we're vitally dependent on this natural storage mechanism of snow that remains through the early springtime, so that we can use it for irrigation and domestic uses in the warm season. Global warming is going to change that, if it happens." Cayan explained that warmer weather would result in rainfall in the mountains, rather than snow during the winter. That in turn would lead to less snowmelt in the warm months. It was in the winter of 1996-97 when warm temperatures together with heavy rainfall brought an early snowmelt that resulted in one of the worst California floods ever.

Scientists at the U.S Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory say that before 2050, California together with other western states will face serious water shortages as the upward trend of temperatures continues, meaning more rain and less snowpack in the winter. As the snowpack acts as a natural reservoir, this would lead to greater late winter and early spring runoff (perhaps increasing the likelihood of more flooding in the spring) and less runoff in the summer. This may point to dire consequences for California farmers, as well as consumers who depend on energy produced from hydroelectric dams.

In the 2002 study, Accelerated Climate Prediction Initiative (ACPI) Pilot Program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography it was forecast in the next 25 to 50 years, that Sacramento River will decrease in volume, meaning less water availability to cities, farmers and for hydropower. With less fresh water, the  Sacramento - San Joaquin Delta would become saltier, endangering the species inhabiting that ecosystem. Reprint of Associated Press Article in Heat is Online Website

In a study by researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and elsewhere, these scientists were surprised as to effect just 2 or 4 degrees (Fahrenheit) of global warming could have on water resources across western North America. Assuming the continuing trend of pollution emissions, greenhouse gases will warm the west coast of North America by about 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit (one or two degrees Celsius) over the next century. Although average precipitation will not change much,a climate model demonstrated that warmer winters will bring higher snowlines, reducing mountain snowpacks.  "We realized that huge areas of the snowpack in the Sierra went down to 15 per cent of today's values," said Michael Dettinger, a research hydrologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. The researchers also predict that by the middle of the century, melting snow will cause streams to reach their annual peak flow up to a month earlier. With warm rains melting snow or drenching already saturated ground, the risk of extreme floods will rise.  [112]

“Most of California's precipitation falls in winter, and in the future more of it is likely to fall as rain, less as snow, a change that is likely to lead to increased winter runoff and decreased summer stream flow. The consequences for spring and summer soil moisture are difficult to predict, but the state's summers are likely to remain hot and dry, and perhaps become even hotter and drier. Such a consequence, combined with decreased summer stream flow, would exacerbate demands for water in the state.”  Union of Concerned Scientists

California's population has been forecast to grow to as many as 54 million people by 2025 — adding some 20 million people to a state already having water problems. Global warming will bring hotter temperatures and depleted snowpacks to California over the next several decades, boosting demands on the state's already strained water supplies, according to a new study. "With less precipitation falling as snow and more as rain, plus higher  temperatures creating increased demand for water, the impacts on our water storage system will be enormous," said Lisa Sloan, an associate professor of Earth sciences at the University of California-Santa Cruz (UCSC) and an author of the new research. The study examined the atmospheric effects of carbon dioxide levels, predicted to rise to as much as twice the levels seen before industrial development by as early as 2050. While rainfall was predicted to rise in the northern part of the state and remain relatively stable in southern California, snow levels were likely to drop off sharply due to the rising temperatures, the study said. The study suggested that in March, for example, the Sierra snowpack would be roughly 13 feet lower than it is now. By the end of April, the snowpack would be almost completely gone. "In water terms, by the end of February there will be 82 % less water than there is now," Sloan said. Sloan says that with major declines in greenhouse gas production, such as a wholesale adoption of nuclear power in the developed world, would still not prevent some of the climate changes already underway. "Even if you assume some pretty drastic changes, the greenhouse gases will still probably increase for a couple of centuries, so our scenarios may still fit a range of actual conditions,'' Sloan said. "You might even come to the conclusion we are looking at a low end of the climate change." Source: Environmental News Network - June 6, 2002

Although much of the above material on water shortages concerns California, the same impacts will likely occur in other states that depend on water storage from snowpacks.

As water resources all over the world become inadequate to meet late summer and early autumn needs, the pressure will be on to go for nuclear power, source of much concern around terrorist and nuclear wastes issues. If the time came that there was not enough water to make hydro-power work, the temptation might be to great to turn away from nuclear power. In spite of much antipathy directed to nuclear power, Americans may very well choose nuclear power for the quick fix. Few would fight the temptation to jump from the 25th story of a burning building.

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Because of an accelerating vortex of winds whipping around the Antarctic, Australia is experiencing a phenomenon that threatens to disrupt rainfall. Spinning faster and tighter, the 100 mile an hour jetstream is pulling climate bands south and dragging rain from Australia into the Southern Ocean. Scientists attribute the phenomenon to global warming and loss of the ozone layer over Antarctica.  See September 24, 2003 Planet Ark Story

Australian scientists from the Bureau of Meteorology, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and Monash University are working with the U.S. Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and the British Antarctic Division on the Antarctic vortex. Focusing on the vortex for only the past few years, they have quantified increased velocity of the wind spin by measuring pressure differences between high latitudes over the Antarctic continent and mid latitudes in the Southern Ocean near Australia.

Australia's 2002/03 drought, the worst in 100 years and the cause of shortages of a wide variety of some of the world's largest supplies of bulk farm foods, was too extensive to blame on the Antarctic vortex. Scientists say a long-standing drought in the southwest corner of Western Australia state could be a foretaste of more extensive drought yet to come in Australia, and perhaps permanent.

According to a report released by Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in March, 2005 (See ABC Online News ) hundreds of millions of people in China, India and Nepal face water shortages, due to retreating glaciers. Himalayan glaciers are receding at an accelerating rate, currently at 10-15 meters per year on average, while in India the Gangotri glacier is receding at an average rate of 23 meters per year. The Himalayan glaciers, that feed into seven of Asia's greatest rivers, the Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Huange He, are a year-round water supply  for 

millions of people in China and the Indian subcontinent. "The rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers will first increase the volume of water in rivers causing, widespread flooding," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF's global climate change programme. "But in a few decades this situation will change and the water levels in rivers will decline, meaning massive economic and environmental problems for people in western China, Nepal and Northern India," she said.

Increasing ocean storms, coastal erosion and oil spill vulnerability
Climate researchers are warning of a possible link between global warming and giant waves in the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists are saying that the increasing severity of climate change may bring rougher seas. Average winter wave heights in the north-east  Atlantic have increased by about a meter (3.28 feet) over the past 30 years. Stormy conditions also persist longer. Ingo Grevemeyer, of the University of Bremen, warns that "Our data suggest a matching trend between rough seas and increased air temperatures.... We know from computer models that temperature will increase in the near future, so if this trend remains the same, we have to face increased wave heights." [110]

German researchers searching records on storm activity in the Atlantic, determined that from 1954 until the late 70s,  there were about seven days of strong ocean waves per month, on average. Then, between the late 70s and the 1980s, the number doubled to 14, staying at that level ever since. [110]

As was mentioned above, major damaging storms would become more frequent before a sea level rise of one meter is reached. The Oakland-based Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security says that when sea level rise reaches a mere 6 inches, a 1-in-100 year storm will become a 1-in-10 year storm at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. What about the many oil tankers that traverse the U.S's west coast? With increasing storm activity, rougher seas, their voyages will become more dangerous, adding yet another threat to California, Oregon and Washington shores. Multiply this threat by the thousands of miles of shorelines all over the world, as increasing ocean storms heightens the vulnerability of coastal areas to oil spills.

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Greenland - A Key to Accelerating Climate Change
According to NASA, Greenland's ice sheet is melting on the edges. Scientists said the resulting increase in sea level of .005 inch per year will not set off any alarm bells. However, if melting does accelerate, this puts at risk about three-fourths of the world population that lives in coastal areas. [60] The ice sheet is a mile and a half thick in some places. As meltwater fromt the surface seeps through crevices in the ice, it loosens the edges of the sheet and causes the ice to flow more swiftly to the sea, where it breaks off into icebergs....Konrad Steffen, University of Colorado glaciologist, said [at the annual fall meeting (December, 2002) of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco] that the ice cover in Greenland was melting faster in 2002 across 265,000 square miles than at any period in recorded history.[116]

In a new study published February 16, 2006 in the journal Science, scientists say that the melting glaciers of Greenland have stepped up their pace considerably. They show that in 1996, the amount of water produced by melting ice in Greenland was about 90 times the amount consumed by Los Angeles in a year. Last year, the melted ice amounted to 225 times the volume of water that Los Angeles uses annually. "We are witnessing enormous changes, and it will take some time before we understand how it happened, although it is clearly a result of warming around the glaciers," said Eric Rignot, one of the study's authors and a scientist at the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Lab. The other author is Pannir Kanagaratnam of the University of Kansas.

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The Sky is Rising
The atmosphere is layered. The bottom layer is the troposphere where we live. The troposphere is home to most of our weather patterns, rainstorms, blizzards, etc. The troposphere varies from 5 to 10 miles deep and is deepest at the equator. Above the troposphere is the stratosphere, where commercial jets fly. The barrier between the troposphere and the stratosphere is the tropopause. It has been noted that the tropopause is climbing, and the reason is us.

Physicist-atmospheric scientist Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and his associates believe that as the atmosphere heats up, the troposphere expands, just as a balloon warms and expands when it drifts from a cool room into a warmer one. Tropospheric expansion nudges the tropopause upward. Another reason for the tropopause rising is the disintegration of ozone in the stratosphere by Chloroflourocarbons (CFCs). No one knows which is more to blame. The tropopause has risen the most around the poles and exceeds 1000 feet in some places. The tropopause typically limits the height of severe storms. The famous wispy “anvil” atop thunderclouds marks where the cloud usually stops rising as it bumps up against the tropopause and the high-speed winds of the stratosphere. It’s any ones guess whether a higher tropopause would lead to taller thunderclouds, with possible consequences such as more violent downdrafts as rain-cooled air plunges from greater heights.  [117]

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Threat to Winter Sports Industry
New England - Scientists predict that the ski season in New England will be negatively impacted by global warming. Since the New England skiing industry has a narrow margin of profitability, just several days or weeks of unfavorable weather could mean an unprofitable season. Climate modelers predict that warming will be greater in the northern latitudes than the projected global average, especially during the autumn and winter months. The following impacts are predicted [50] :

• Mid-season rain and significantly more freeze-thaw cycles would produce more icy, granular conditions that are unfavorable for skiing.
• Mid-season rain would necessitate more snowmaking to restore proper skiing conditions. Snowmaking means using about 150,000 to 180,000 gallons of water per acre of ski trails for an average depth of one foot. Meanwhile, possible lack of regional water supplies may work against the New England ski industry using large quantities of water for recreational purposes.
• In New Hampshire recent levels of ski spending, including spending on meals and hotels and motels, totals about $421 million. Projected losses of 10 to 20 percent of ski season days may mean a loss of $42 million to $84 million for the New Hampshire ski industry alone

California - Global warming may already be having an effect in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, by decreasing the amount of precipitation that falls as snow. This leaves less snow for the California ski and snowboard industry, which may resemble New England above in economic impact. There is evidence that climate change is already causing changes in the Sierra snow pack. A study of records, dating back 50 years for two streams in the northern Sierras, reported increased winter and early spring runoff during the period 1965 - 1990 versus the period 1939 - 1964. This was attributed to small increases in temperature during the period ending 1990.   [51]

Europe - According to a study released in December, 2003 by the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) European ski resorts may be left with little snowpack in the coming decades. The study says that increasing temperatures will melt glaciers and raise the snow line up mountains, crippling the ski industry. Skiers see plenty of snow above 3,900 feet but, according to the report, in 30 to 50 years they will have to climb or be lifted to altitudes of 4,900 to 5,900 ft.  See Planet Ark Story

There  is has been reported in the news that banks in Switzerland have stopped giving loans to ski resorts below 4900 feet (1500 meters), fearing they may not be repaid because of climbing snow lines. See Planet Ark Story

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Carbon dioxide emissions increases acidity of ocean waters
In the journal, Nature, September 25, 2003 issue, researchers Ken Caldeira and Michael Wickett, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have reported in a study that their computer models and experiments point to carbon emissions as a source of  increasing acidity to the planet's oceans, threatening marine species. Acidity of the seas will increase more rapidly over the next 1000 years than it has over the past 300 million years. Such acidity would endanger coral, home to 25% of the world's marine species, many types of calcium-containing plankton and all the shelled marine animals (Taken from San Francisco Chronicle article by David Perlman, September 25, 2003). See American Meteorological Society’s Environmental Science Seminar Series Changes in Ocean Acidity Resulting from the Buildup of CO2: Implications for the Present and Future

Besides warming Antarctic waters, ocean acidification and coral bleaching, scientists are now discovering another way climate change may be threatening the planet’s oceans, by depriving marine life of oxygen.

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