Small temperature changes, big effects on life
(NSF)
A small change in temperature can have a big effect on the communities living at the bottom of the Earth, in Antarctica.
That’s according to Diana Wall, Professor of Biology and researcher at the Natural Resource Ecology Lab at Colorado State University. Wall told Earth & Sky that key penguin species, for example, are vulnerable to temperature change.
Diana Wall: You increase the temperature a small degree, and all of a sudden their life history, how they’re going to live, how they’re going to reproduce, how they’re going to be active with this different temperature, has been changed. And that would be very much the same sort of thing as if you said, we have giraffes in Africa, and guess, what, we’re making it a highway.
Temperature change causes ecosystem change. A study by the National Academy of Sciences found that the extent of sea ice, which harbors food for Adelie penguins, has decreased in eastern Antarctica. That shrinking food supply makes it harder for penguins to go to and from their breeding grounds. And that means they reproduce less successfully.
And it’s not just penguins affected by change. Wall also spoke of nematodes – small worms – important for cycling carbon through the Antarctic soils.
Diana Wall: Each one of them, no matter if one’s a bird and one’s a small worm, they’ve adapted to their ecosystem. And so, they’ve evolved these life history strategies to live with the cold, to live with the ice, to live in this barren landscape.
Our thanks today to NASA: explore, discover, understand.
Our thanks to:
Diana H. Wall
Director of the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado
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THe earth has warmed and cooled for eons. The earth has been subjected to periods of violent volcanism. 75,000 years ago, the Toba Volcano erupted with enough force to destroy most life on the planet. The human genome shows a bottleneck at that time. Most of our cousins were wiped out. Prior to that mess, Yellowstone Caldera pretty much destroyed life on a good part of the North American continent. Prior to that, the smart folks say an asteroid struck the earth about 65 million years ago in what we call the south western gulf of Mexico wiping out the dinosaurs.
Life survived somehow.
If we humans want to survive, we will need to leave this planet and colonize many others as an insurance policy. And, if the physicists and astronomers are right, the whole universe as we know it will collapse at some future date.
What is there to do? Birth is the number one cause of death.
I think we need not accentuate the negative as it serves no purpose. We need to the best we can with the resources we have. Live, love and think. Learn as much as we can and celebrate individual diversity and liberty. Don’t trust anyone who says they love you that you don’t personally know. Don’t trust all of them, either. Realize we humans are animals, primarily interested in our own business. Folks that spend an inordinate amount of time saving other folks or minding other’s business either are woefully messed up in their presonalities or are after fame, fortune, power and/or money.
Life ain’t all that complicated if you will just sit down and think about it. The Saber Tooth Tiger is extinct. We can’t blame it on the SUV. I will be extinct one day. It will be called old age if I am fortunate. I plan to live happily in liberty and in a capitalist systen so that I might enjoy the fruits of my labors t othe best of my ability. I will not worry about those things I cannot control (such as climate, volcanoes, asteriods etc) but will try to influence things that I can (such as politics, economics and the like).
the voice of reason
Benjamin, you make some very good points, but the one thing I have to diagree with is that we can’t affect climate. I think we all realize that the Earth’s climate goes through cycles, but everything seems to point towards humans pushing our climate and many ecosystems out of balance right now. We cannot neccesarily control climate, but we do affect it with our everyday choices. The more people who choose to live as green a lifestyle as possible in this day and age, the better for the Earth and all her species. Just because we have been destined to take our collective place as the propellers of a new climate era on this Earth is not an excuse to rest on our laurels and not be as responsible as possible for our actions. We have the ability to positively affect what is taking place. I think that is what most people who put so-called “negative “ information on the climate subject out there are doing. They are simply trying to get people’s attention so that we can then start consciously making decisions that positively affect how this all plays out. Caring about our whole human family, which includes caring about people you don’t personally know, is not a fault. I care about what happens to people I don’t know, and perhaps if more people did, this world wouldn’t be so messed up. Not only that, but I also care about my whole Earth family, which includes plants and animals. I don’t think that that represents a personality flaw, and I am certainly not after fame, power, or money. I just think that as conscious creatures, we have the ability to create a beautiful world. Unfortunately, not all humans these days are “conscious”. Just some food for thought.
namaste…
i doubt anyone believes that we should abuse the environment just because warming is inevitable i think the argument is against alarmist reaction and use of it as a political debate. i believe that if you look at the numbers, you will find that in 1800 roughly the beginning of the industrial age you will find there were 1 billion people on the planet.in 2006 thre were a little more than 6 billion. thats 5 billion more humans producving their own carbon output. that alone is a rise in total levels just from respiration. then in the last 10 years more people want to own an suv. this produces more co gas and the irony is most people would say that they bought their suv to protect their children while they could actually protect their grandchildrens grandchildren by owning a fuel saving economy car.we can be aware of the warming of the atmosphere but if you worry about the actions of people you will give yourself an ulcer