Species that benefit from global warming?

[dichotomy]

With all this gloom and doom about global warming destroying species, what species, that benefit humans, will actually benefit from global warming?

 

Is there an existing thread on this?

[bascule]

Jellyfish certainly seem to be doing well

[ecoli]

sure they seem to be doing well, but blooms of any particular species has the potential to damage the entire ecosystem.

[bascule]

sure they seem to be doing well, but blooms of any particular species has the potential to damage the entire ecosystem.

 

Yup, collateral damage, but I'm sure the jellyfish are happy

[CharonY]

Guess we will know after the first couple of selective sweeps

[Mr Skeptic]

I'd say whatever grows in Siberia when it gets a bit defrosted.

[CaptainPanic]

I think plants in general are thriving. This is supported by a study (2 links to it below):

 

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/surprise-earths-biosphere-is-booming-co2-the-cause/

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=569586

[jimmydasaint]

Try smallpox or other viruses from bodies defrosted from tundra

http://www.livescience.com/environment/080327-smallpox-corpses.html or bacteria being released from defrosting and 'reawakened' after millenia or even, theoretically, millions of years.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7019473

[alanrocks]

most aquatic life

 

to tell you the truth the only reson we are even worried about global warming is because of coastal cities

[iNow]

most aquatic life

 

to tell you the truth the only reson we are even worried about global warming is because of coastal cities

 

That's simply false.

 

Climate change will impact climate systems across the globe. While aquatic life will very likely be the first area impacted (the proverbial canary in the coal mine), and coastal cities will experience sea level changes and hurricanic storm frequency changes, the people inland will experience droughts, and ecosystems will crash due to even slight changes in temperature. This applies mid-continent just as much as it does in coastal regions (and sometimes more).

 

In sum, you didn't tell a truth, you shared a misunderstanding. It's okay, though. There's a lot of information on this topic, and nobody expects everyone to know all of it. Just try to remind yourself that you still have a lot to learn, and you will do better at avoiding absolute comments like that.

[Aardvark]

Jellyfish certainly seem to be doing well

 

That's probably because all of the fish that normally prey on them have been subject to overfishing.

[SkepticLance]

Coral reefs will probably spread. As a keen scuba diver, I have observed coral reefs and other corals in a wide range of places. If the oceans warm to a significant degree, we can expect coral reefs to spread well north and south of the equator.

 

Climate change will result in some places becoming warmer and dryer, and other places becoming warmer and wetter. In the latter, it is quite possible that tropical plants will thrive.

[iNow]

Not sure coral reefs are going to fair so well, Lance:

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/warming-coral.html

 

Eight years after warming seas caused the worst coral die-off on record, coral reefs in the Indian Ocean are still unable to recover, biologists say.

 

Many reefs have been reduced to rubble, a collapse that has deprived fish of food and shelter.

 

<...>

 

Small but prolonged rises in sea temperature force coral colonies to expel their symbiotic, food-producing algae, a process known as bleaching.

 

<...>

 

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.

 

Knowlton, who is also a member of National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration, notes that corals live precariously close to their thermal limits.

 

As a result, even the most isolated reefs are vulnerable to the effects of global warming.

 

"These increasingly warm temperatures that we've been seeing in the last couple of decades have been tipping reefs over in terms of these fast bleaching events," she said.

[SkepticLance]

The effect of global warming in causing coral bleaching is largely a myth. Sure, temperature bleaching occurs. It happens when a 'hot spot' hits a region of ocean, and causes the problem. However, global warming is not the cause of those 'hot spots'. Localised hot spots and bleaching has probably been a part of coral reef ecology for thousands of years.

 

The long term, overall rise in temperature of the ocean is way lower than the warming of the atmosphere. While the oceans accept a lot of heat energy, they can do so without much temperature rise. The actual rise varies a bit according to depth, but is about 0.12 C in the regions coral grows. This is insufficient to cause coral bleaching. The proposed coral bleaching problem is, therefore, like many other global climate change 'problems' purely theoretical.

 

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2006-112

 

"Researchers found the average temperature of the upper ocean increased by 0.09 degrees Celcius (0.16 degrees Fahrenheit) from 1993 to 2003, and then fell 0.03 degrees Celcius (0.055 degrees Fahrenheit) from 2003 to 2005. The recent decrease is a dip equal to about one-fifth of the heat gained by the ocean between 1955 and 2003."

 

 

 

On the other hand, even a small average increase in ocean temperature will extend the northern and southern limits for coral growth.

[iNow]

The effect of global warming in causing coral bleaching is largely a myth.

I didn't know peer reviewed journals were publishing myths these days. That's some claim you've made Lance. Strange attempt to just brush aside the truth of the science, that was.

 

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS275&q=coral%20reef%20climate%20warming&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws

[SkepticLance]

Coral bleaching is due to a reasonably strong change in temperature.

 

http://www.marinebiology.org/coralbleaching.htm

 

"Coral species live within a relatively narrow temperature margin, and anomalously low and high sea temperatures can induce coral bleaching. Bleaching events occur during sudden temperature drops accompanying intense upwelling episodes, (-3 degrees C to –5 degrees C for 5-10 days), seasonal cold-air outbreaks. Bleaching is much more frequently reported from elevated se water temperature. A small positive anomaly of 1-2 degrees C for 5-10 weeks during the summer season will usually induce bleaching."

 

Note : It takes at least 1 C to induce bleaching, even at the time of highest summer temperature. Global warming has warmed the oceans by only 0.12 C. Thus, for coral bleaching to occur, it requires a much larger increase in temperature. This happens with a localised (hundreds or thousands of square kilometres) hot spot near the ocean surface. These have always been a part of ocean activity. After all, it is local hot spots that are the primary drivers of hurricanes, and we have had hurricanes since way before we had global warming.

[CaptainPanic]

It could be that the 0.12 C is an average temperature increase, while local temperature changes can be much larger. If the mean value has risen by 0.12 C, then the necessary 1 degree temperature increase will occur more frequently too. As written above, the weather and seasonal changes influence the water temperature a lot.

[SkepticLance]

To CP

 

That is correct. Global warming has raised ocean temperatures by 0.12 C. A level of 1 to 2 C rise is needed above maximum normal summer temperature to cause coral bleaching. However, such temperature rises have always happened on a temporary basis.

 

For example : the El Nino/La Nina cycle alone can cause an oceanic temperature rise and fall of up to 4 Celsius. If this rise hits at peak summer times, guess what happens? And this cycle does not correlate with global warming. It is just a natural cycles that has existed well before current warming.

 

My own guess is that coral bleaching has always happened, and is part of the normal ecology of reefs. The corals do recover, and probably always have.

[iNow]

My own guess is that...

 

Super, but there's no need to guess or to posit unfounded speculation. I shared a plethora of references supporting the science of the issue in post #15. You really ought to read some of it.

[bascule]

That's probably because all of the fish that normally prey on them have been subject to overfishing.

 

Did you pull that hypothesis out of your ass? What fish are you talking about? The Bannerfish? Do you have any evidence that any of the Jellyfish's predators are subject to overfishing?

 

Here, read this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24987863/

[Pangloss]

Did you pull that hypothesis out of your ass?

 

There's no need for that. Be polite, please.

[dichotomy]

Can someone please point me to a widely recognised graph/chart that compares the estimated percentages of man made GW to natural GW?

 

 

This map that shows us that we may "naturally" be coming out of the last ice age has got me interested. Even if man stops contributing to GW, it looks like it will eventually be ideal weather for the cold blooded animals once again (lawyers and politicians;)), with or without man contributing to GW? I've also recently read that an ice age can be here and gone in a 3 year stint, an occurance that apparently isn't just a recorded one-off event. Basically, rapid climate change can and has occured in the past, without our handy techy know how.

 

[iNow]

Can someone please point me to a widely recognised graph/chart that compares the estimated percentages of man made GW to natural GW?

This page might point you in the right direction:

 

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11638

 

 

 

 

[dichotomy]

Thanks iNow, some good information there.

 

does any one know if there are graphs with much larger scales of time (than from 1958) for CO2 release and absorption?

 

I'm hoping for this Paleomap (http://www.scotese.com/images/globaltemp.jpg)

graph type of scale, but I'm eager to see what else might be available?

 

The IPCC seems to be working within a 1000 year scale, from what I can see.

Edited August 4, 2008 by dichotomy

[Bicycle Seat]

I'm sure Global Warming would benefit a lot of species, if it weren't complete and utter bollocks to begin with, and not simply a Marxist redistribution of wealth scheme.