Climate change downsizing fauna, flora

Climate change downsizing fauna, flora: study - Climate change is reducing the body size of many animal and plant species, including some which supply vital nutrition for more than a billion people already living near hunger's threshold, according to a study released Sunday.

From micro-organisms to top predators, nearly 45 percent of species for which data was reviewed grew smaller over multiple generations due to climate change, researchers found.

The impact of rapidly climbing temperatures and shifts in rainfall patterns on body size could have unpredictable and possible severe consequences, they warned.

Previous work established that recent climate change has led to sharp shifts in habitat and the timing of reproductive cycles. But impact on the size of plants and animals has received far less attention.

A toad is seen in Borneo in July 2011. Climate change is reducing the body size of many animal and plant species, including some which supply vital nutrition for more than a billion people already living near hunger's threshold, according to a study released Sunday. (AFP Photo/Indraneil Das)

Jennifer Sheridan and David Bickford at the National University of Singapore looked at scientific literature on climate-change episodes in the distant past and at experiments and observations in recent history.

Fossil records, they found, were unambiguous: past periods of rising temperatures had led both marine and land organisms to became progressively smaller.

During a warming event 55 million years ago -- often seen as an analogue for current climate change -- beetles, bees, spiders, wasps and ants shrank by 50 to 75 percent over a period of several thousand years.

Mammals such as squirrels and woodrats also diminished in size, by about 40 percent.

The pace of current warming, though, is far greater than during this so-called Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).

It, too, has begun to shrink dozens of species, the study found.

Among 85 examples cited, 45 percent were unaffected. But of those remaining, four out of five had gotten smaller, while a fifth got bigger.

Some of the shrinkage came as a surprise. "Plants were expected to get larger with increased atmospheric carbon dioxide," but many wound up stunted due to changes in temperature, humidity and nutrients available, the researchers said.

For cold-blooded animals -- including insects, reptiles and amphibians -- the impact is direct: experiments suggest that an upward tick of one degree Celsius translates into roughly a 10 percent increase in metabolism, the rate at which an organism uses energy. That, in turn, results in downsizing.

The common toad, for example, has measurably shriveled in girth in only two decades, along with some tortoises, marine iguanas and lizards.

Overfishing has been blamed for decreased body size in both wild and commercially-harvested aquatic species, threatening the key source of protein of a billion people around the world, mainly in Africa and Asia.

But experiments and observational studies have shown that warming waters play a role as well, especially in rivers and lakes.

Birds -- including passerines, goshawks and gulls -- and mammals such as soay sheep, red dear and polar bears, have also trended towards less bulk.

Some of the most worrying changes are at the bottom of the food chain, especially in the ocean, where tiny phytoplankton and calcium-building creatures are dwindling in size due to acidification and the reduced capacity of warmer water to hold oxygen and nutrients.

Carbon pollution has probably locked in an additional 1.0 C increase in average global temperatures, and continued emissions of greenhouse gases could push up the thermometre another 4.0 to 5.0 C (7.4 to 9.0 F) by centuries end, according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Because warming is occurring at unprecedented rates, "may organisms may not respond or adapt quickly enough", especially those with long generation times, the authors noted in an email.

"We do not yet know the exact mechanisms involved, or why some organisms are getting smaller while others are unaffected," they added. "Until we understand more, we could be risking negative consequences that we can't yet quantify."

The study is published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change. ( AFP )

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No more burning rivers, but new threats

No more burning rivers, but new threats – Pollution before the first Earth Day was not only visible, it was in your face: Cleveland's Cuyahoga River caught fire. An oil spill fouled 30 miles of Southern California beaches. And thick smog choked many cities' skies.

Not anymore.

On Thursday, 40 years after that first Earth Day in 1970, smog levels nationwide have dropped by about a quarter, and lead levels in the air are down more than 90 percent. Formerly fetid lakes and burning rivers are now open to swimmers.

The challenges to the planet today are largely invisible — and therefore tougher to tackle.

"To suggest that we've made progress is not to say the problem is over," said William Ruckelshaus, who in 1970 became the first head of the Environmental Protection Agency. "What we've done is shift from the very visible kinds of issues to those that are a lot more subtle today."

Issues such as climate change are less obvious to the naked eye. Since the first Earth Day, carbon dioxide levels in the air have increased by 19 percent, pushing the average annual world temperature up about 1 degree Fahrenheit, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"We've cleaned up what you can see and left everything else in limbo," said Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network.

Improvements took shape in the form of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and changes in the way businesses treat the environment, said Denis Hayes. Those reforms, he added, grew out of the first Earth Day, an event Hayes helped coordinate.

"It is the most powerful, sweeping, society-wide change America has had since the New Deal," Hayes said. "The air is cleaner despite the fact that we have twice as many vehicles traveling twice as many miles."

Nancy Sutley, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said progress in the past 40 years is about more than just laws. It's also about innovation that made cleaner cars. And that innovation, Sutley said, "is going to be the answer for tackling climate change."

No place illustrates progress more than the Cuyahoga River.

Cleveland's main river used to periodically catch fire. On June 22, 1969, trash and an oil slick ignited. The river burned for half an hour, drawing national attention to water pollution nationwide.

People didn't swim in the river at the time, and anyone who fell in needed to be checked by a doctor.

"The river bubbled like a cauldron. There were all kinds of chemicals in there, and that was what was bubbling at the bottom," said Wayne Bratton, a boat captain then and now, and the first president of the Cleveland Harbor Conservation Committee.

On Tuesday, Wayne Bratton was aboard his boat, The Holiday. He looked over the starboard side at Collision Bend and described by telephone what he saw: "I'm looking at a lot of gulls, there's a loon, a lot of black heron."

People now fish in the river, which holds 60 species. There's a spiffy amphitheater on the river bank, which never would have been built when the water had a dreadful stench, Bratton said.

It's not just the Cuyahoga. In 1957, the Public Health Service declared the Potomac River unsafe for swimming. Now Rogers lets her children swim in it.

"I don't even wash them off any more," she said.

In Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s, the joke was that if you moved in during the summer you wouldn't notice the nearby mountains until the winter. Now peak smog levels are only one-third as high as 40 years ago, he said.

"Unfortunately, it leads some people to think that we don't have a problem any more," said Sam Atwood, spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

The region still has 6,000 yearly premature deaths linked to unseen tiny particles in the air that cause heart and lung problems, Atwood said.

In 1970, Ruckelshaus said, about 85 percent of pollution was from places like factories or power plants that the government could regulate. Now such sites account for only 15 percent, with most pollution coming from sources like farms that are harder to control.

That makes fixing the remaining problems politically difficult, said Russell Train, chief environmental adviser in 1970 to President Richard Nixon.

"Back in the '70s, people felt the threat of environmental mistakes and misbehavior," Train said. "There was a real threat to your health and people knew that. Today, people will accept that as a general principal, but don't feel any immediate threat from climate change or indirect source pollution from farmers."

Last month was the hottest March on record worldwide. It was 1.4 degrees warmer than March 1970, according to NOAA.

The average temperatures for the last 40 years are higher than the rest of the 130 years of record-keeping, said Deke Arndt, head of climate monitoring at NOAA's National Climate Data Center.

And, this week, German scientists published an analysis in the scientific journal Nature that says the greenhouse gas agreement reached by some international leaders last December in Copenhagen would lead to a 10 to 20 percent increase in carbon dioxide levels in 2020.

That puts "in dire peril" chances for limiting the effects of warming, the researchers said.

Still, the White House's Sutley is optimistic.

"The Cuyahoga River is not on fire anymore, and air quality in Los Angeles is not as bad as it was 40 years ago. I think people get those connections," Sutley said. "People get that something is changing about our climate." ( The Associated Press )

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Church's bill to hit €20m after latest sex claims

Church's bill to hit €20m after latest sex claims. The compensation bill for victims of child abuse in the Dublin diocese is set to double to more than €20m, the Irish Independent has learned.

The total is likely to soar after shocking details of abuse by paedophile priests were made public over the weekend.

The report of the Commission of Investigation into child abuse -- which will be presented to the Cabinet today -- will detail further evidence of horrific abuse involving priests in the Dublin diocese.

It also criticises the failure of the Church to report the litany of cases to the gardai.

The archdiocese has so far identified up to 450 victims who were abused as children dating back as far as 1940. In all, 120 civil actions were taken against 35 Dublin priests or priests who held positions in the diocese.

The 94 cases they have settled to date cost the diocese €7.3m in compensation and a further €3.2 in legal fees.

However, sources close to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin last night said the final payout will be double this figure.

The report has found Dr Martin's predecessors -- John Charles McQuaid, Dermot Ryan, Kevin McNamara and Desmond Connell -- were all aware of the complaints of sexual abuse involving priests in the Dublin diocese, but failed to report it to gardai.

Shocked

The report says Dr Connell was shocked at the extent of the abuse within the diocese. But he was slow to recognise the seriousness of the situation and failed to realise that clerical sex abusers could not be dealt with in secret.

However, his reputation could be partially rehabilitated as he is credited with reintroducing internal Church tribunals designed to put abusing clerics on secret trial leading to their removal -- defrocking --from the priesthood.

Cardinal Connell maintained his silence yesterday after the leaked report criticised his handling of the abuses.

A housekeeper at his Dublin home re-directed all queries to the archbishop's residence.

The Dublin diocese also declined to answer queries about the report's findings.

Archbishop Martin yesterday met with other senior bishops in Maynooth to prepare the agenda for next month's meeting of the hierarchy.

However, a spokesperson for Dr Martin insisted the bishops did not discuss details of the leaked Commission of Investigation report.

Assets

Meanwhile, a separate report will reveal how religious orders will be able to use more of their assets to compensate victims of abuse by brothers and nuns.

The report, which is also due to be published shortly, was delivered to Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe two weeks ago.

However, further information has been sought from individual orders about their assets and how they can increase their contribution to compensation.

The report was compiled by a three-person panel, chaired by Frank Daly, former chairman of the Revenue Commissioners. They were asked to assess the resources of the religious orders after the public outcry following the publication of the Ryan report six months ago.

Former minister Dr Michael Woods had capped the liability of the religious orders and congregations at €128m, although the cost to the state is estimated at a massive €1.3bn.

But the delay in publishing the assets' report was criticised by Fine Gael last night.

"Legislation is urgently needed to address the making of additional financial contributions by religious orders and congregations for the benefit of victims of institutional child abuse," the party's children's spokesman Alan Shatter said.

The minister last night said he hoped to publish the report "soon".

"The Government will consider the matter, in consultation with representatives of the survivors and the congregations, in the light of an offer from the congregations and the report of the panel," he said.( @independent news )

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Antartic ice loss vaster, faster than thought: study

Antartic ice loss vaster, faster than thought: study - The East Antarctic icesheet, once seen as largely unaffected by global warming, has lost billions of tonnes of ice since 2006 and could boost sea levels in the future, according to a new study.

Published Sunday in Nature Geoscience, the same study shows that the smaller but less stable West Antarctic icesheet is also shedding significant mass.

Scientists worry that rising global temperatures could trigger a rapid disintegration of West Antarctica, which holds enough frozen water to push up the global ocean watermark by about five metres (16 feet).

In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) predicted sea levels would rise 18 to 59 centimetres (7.2 to 23.2 inches) by 2100, but this estimate did not factor in the potential impact of crumbling icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

Today many of the same scientist say that even if heat-trapping CO2 emissions are curtailed, the ocean watermark is more likely to go up by nearly a metre, enough to render several small island nations unlivable and damage fertile deltas home to hundreds of millions.

More than 190 nations gather in Copenhagen next month to hammer out a global climate deal to curb greenhouse gases and help poor countries cope with its consequences.

University of Texas professor Jianli Chen and colleagues analysed nearly seven years of data on ocean-icesheet interaction in Antarctica.

Covering the period up January 2009, the data was collected by the twin GRACE satellites, which detect mass flows in the ocean and polar regions by measuring changes in Earth`s gravity field.

Consistent with earlier findings based on different methods, they found that West Antarctica dumped, on average, about 132 billion tonnes of ice into the sea each year, give or take 26 billion tonnes.

They also found for the first time that East Antarctica -- on the Eastern Hemisphere side of the continent -- is likewise losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of about 57 billion tonnes annually.

The margin or error, they cautioned, is almost as large as the estimate, meaning ice loss could be a little as a few billion tonnes or more than 100.

Up to now, scientists had thought that East Antarctica was in "balance," meaning that it accumulated as much mass and it gave off, perhaps a bit more.

"Acceleration of ice loss in recent years over the entire continent is thus indicated," the authors conclude. "Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea level rise."

Another study published last week in the journal Nature reported an upwardly-revised figure for Antarctic temperatures during prior "interglacials", warm periods such as our own that have occurred roughly every 100,000 years.

During the last interglacial which peaked some 128,000 years ago, called the Eemian Period, temperatures in the region were probably six degree Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than today, which is about 3 C (5.4 C) above previous estimates, the study said.

The findings suggest that the region may be more sensitive than scientists thought to greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere that were roughly equivalent to present day levels.

During the Eemian, sea levels were five-to-seven metres higher than today. ( antara.com)

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