Media Amplifies Forister’s Feeble Butterfly Science & Climate Fearmongering

Last week the Guardian proclaimed Butterfly Numbers Plummeting in US West as Climate Crisis Takes Toll. Numerous media outlets flooded the internet with similar versions in response to the research article Fewer Butterflies Seen by Community Scientists Across the Warming and Drying Landscapes of The American West  by lead author Dr. Matt Forister.  Researchers found warmer summer temperatures had a positive effect statistically, while warmer autumn temperatures had a negative association. Sadly, in an age where chicken little catastrophes sell, only the negative fall temperature statistic got hyped.

 

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Worse, the public was misled to assume “all” western butterflies were declining. For example, a  University of Arizona press release (home of Forister’s co-author) stated, “Western butterfly populations are declining at an estimated rate of 1.6% per year,….The report looks at more than 450 butterfly species.” Although their database “encompassed more than 450 species”, their analyses addressed just 289 species. Only 182 exhibited declining populations. Another 107 species were stable or increasing, and 161 lacked sufficient data for analysis.

 

 

Forister et al. examined 3 independent datasets to determine the regional extent of butterfly declines. The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) supplied their once-a-year butterfly counts, typically held around July 4th, from 72 different sites. ( I’ve participated in Sierra Nevada counts) Dr. Art Shapiro’s northern California bi-weekly surveys provided a second dataset but covered only 10 sites from the San Francisco Bay area to the Sierra Nevada crest. The iNaturalist’s citizen-science dataset covers the entire west but fails to provide trustworthy trend data.

 

 

Comparing trends in the NABA & Shapiro datasets, only 104 species exhibited declines in both. In other words, only 23% of the ballyhooed 450 species showed a possible widespread decline. Despite that reality, National Geographic still trumpeted 450 Butterfly Species Rapidly Declining Due to Warmer Autumns in The Western U.S.  Forister had encouraged a climate change caused decline hypothesizing, “fall warming likely induces physiological stress on active and diapausing stages, reduces host plant vigor, or extends activity periods for natural enemies.” But most species are no longer flying or laying eggs or feeding during the autumn. Most feed on springtime and early summer vegetation which is already dead or dormant by autumn. By autumn, most have sought relative safety from approaching winter to await the next flush of vegetation.

 

 

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Forister et al. disturbingly downplayed known benefits of summer warming, suggesting it only increased butterfly visibility stating, “warming in the summer influences adult activity times directly and hence increases the probability of detection”. But to power their flight, butterflies sunbathe to raise their body temperature above ambient summer air temperatures. Warmth-powered flight is needed for mating and finding host plants. Summer warmth enables faster larval growth, which may enable an additional generation (i.e. Monarchs). In other species, like Edith’s checkerspot, the caterpillars seek hotter surfaces to speed growth and reach the required size to successfully overwinter. Warmer summers benefit many species in many ways.

 

 

Furthermore Forister did not remove well-known declining trends caused by insecticides and land use change. In a 2010 paper he found, “most severe reductions at the lowest elevations, where habitat destruction is greatest.” In a 2014 paper Forister concluded,  “Patterns of land use contributed to declines in species richness, but the net effect of a changing climate on butterfly richness was more difficult to discern.” In his 2016 paper he modelled negative effects of neonicotinoid insecticides.

 

 

The media typically implied a climate connection to the 99% decline of Monarch butterflies, listed as Forister’s 37th most declining species. Yet the Monarch’s big killers are also land use change and herbicides, not climate change. In the 1970s, scientists discovered virtually all monarchs breeding east of the Rocky Mountains migrate to overwinter in extremely small patches of high mountain forests in central Mexico. However logging was opening the forest canopy and removing its insulating effects. In January 2002, a storm brought cold rains followed by clear skies. Without an insulating forest canopy, temperatures plummeted to 23°F (- 4°C). Millions of damp butterflies froze in place. Many millions more fell creating an eerie carpet of dead and dying butterflies several inches deep. 500 million butterflies died that winter, wiping out 80% of the entire eastern population. Similar cold events happened in 2004, 2010 and 2016. Population declines for monarchs wintering in California have paralleled the Mexican declines.

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Additionally increased herbicide use severely reduced the monarch’s food plants, milkweeds. Because milkweed competed with crops, reducing harvests of wheat and sorghum by 20%, most states had declared milkweed a noxious weed. Due to the 1970s discovery of the herbicide glyphosate (i.e. Roundup) and the 1990s development of genetically modified herbicide-resistant soybean and corn crops, milkweeds dramatically declined, hindering monarch summertime recovery. To truly benefit butterflies, farmers and the public are planting butterfly friendly gardens, while climate warming provides great benefits.

 

Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus, authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism, and a member of the CO2 Coalition

 

 

Contact: naturalclimatechange@earthlink.net

Cold Snaps Expose Climate Science Fragility

Cold snaps can be deadly. A 2014 National Health Statistics report found, “During 2006–2010, about 2,000 U.S. residents died each year from weather-related deaths; 63% were attributed to exposure to natural cold. The recent cold snap in Texas and Germany highlighted our energy system’s vulnerabilities. During times of our greatest need, inadequate natural gas supplies, frozen wind turbines and snow-covered solar panels, left too many shivering in the dark. Why were we unprepared for such cold when the northern hemisphere had been experiencing a winter cooling trend since 1990? Were government officials too gullible, lulled by narratives that global warming would make snow disappear and cold snaps less likely?

 

After every deadly cold snap, defenders of CO2-driven-climate-change repeat the same unbelievable narrative “increased warming causes more cold”. Their argument is based on a sliver of truth regards the polar vortex’s influence on cold air. In the winter without sunlight, polar air cools much faster than the lower latitude air. The stark temperature contrast between cold and warm air intensifies the polar jet stream which defines the vortex’s boundary. The sliver of truth is intruding warmth can indeed weaken the vortex

 

 

The vortex was heavily studied in the 1990s due to concerns about ozone holes. Although typically ignored by the media, increasing CO₂ both warms the lower atmosphere (troposphere) and cools the stratosphere. Climate models all predicted the vortex would strengthen because greenhouse gases would enhance stratospheric cooling by 5–7°C during December and January by 2019. Because ozone depletion requires extreme cold, it was feared increasing CO₂ would enhance the ozone holes. Furthermore, climate scientists argued a warming troposphere and a cooling stratosphere was the undeniable “human fingerprint” of CO₂ caused climate change. But their science was woefully incomplete. Stratospheric warming increased, the 2019 ozone hole was smallest on record and the vortex weakened despite CO₂-caused cooling.

 

High in the stratosphere, the boundary of the vortex is symmetrical simply based on the contrast between colder and warmer latitudes. However, near the surface, mountains and land-sea temperature contrasts naturally cause the jet stream to be wavy. The Pacific high-pressure system and USA’s western mountain ranges cause the jet stream to veer northward, pulling warm subtropical air north over North America’s west coast. Moving eastward the jet stream then plunges southward driving extreme cold into the USA east of the Rocky Mountains. This natural undulation likely explains the “warming hole” in southeastern USA where temperatures have not warmed for over a century. Over 36% of the long-term USA weather stations, concentrated mostly in the eastern USA, experienced 70-year cooling trends despite urban heat island affects.

 

Some climate scientists argue CO₂ induced “Arctic Amplification” causing warmer polar temperatures which increases the jet stream’s waviness. However, there is no consensus for their hypothesis, and some argue there is little evidence at all for that effect. Nonetheless there is an excellent, albeit ignored, explanation for the warming Arctic/cooling mid-latitudes paradox. The natural quasi-permanent Aleutian Low nearly explains it all, with similar dynamics in the north Atlantic.

 

The Arctic Ocean radiates away more heat (~100 watts/m²) than it absorbs from sun and greenhouse effects combined. (human-added CO₂ offsets less than 2 watts/m²) It’s the inflow of warm ocean water that determines if the Arctic ocean cools or warms. Like the stratospheric vortex, the Aleutian Low forms every year as the northern hemisphere cools, but its position and strength vary due to natural El Nino cycles, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation. When the Aleutian Low is positioned over the Bering Sea it drives warm southern air and warm storms further northward. That dynamic also raises sea level south of the Bering Strait, increasing warm water flows through the strait. Increased warm water flows melt more sea ice and triggers Arctic Amplification and higher temperatures.

 

Simultaneously, when the Aleutian Low is positioned over the Bering Sea its strength increases, intensifying upward motions of relatively warm air into the stratosphere. It’s that warmth that weakens the polar vortex and unleashes the cold Arctic air. When natural weather re-positions the Aleutian Low over the Gulf of Alaska, wind direction changes, blowing water away from the Bering Strait. That reduces warm water flows into the Arctic. The Aleutian Low also weakens reducing upward atmospheric motion, allowing the vortex to strengthen.

 

The Aleutian Low’s position changes throughout the winter and from year to year. However, before the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) switched phases, between 1950–1976 the Aleutian Low spent, on average, 16 months over the Bering Sea and 20 months over the Gulf of Alaska. After the PDO shifted, the Aleutian Low only spent 7 months during the next 25 years over the Gulf Alaska and more time over the Bering Sea.  That shift changed the balance to a warmer Arctic, a more common weaker vortex and more cold snaps.

 

Clearly energy policy must be better prepared to deal with natural climate change and its periodic extreme cold.

 

Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus, authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism, and a member of the CO2 Coalition

 

 

Contact: naturalclimatechange@earthlink.net

Kivalina Disappearance Not Caused by Climate Change

In 2017 Huffington Post wrote, “It is disappearing. Fast. Kivalina could be uninhabitable by 2025, all thanks to climate change.” Like so many media outlets and politicians, they were ignoring Kivalina’s real problem. Kivalina was never a place the Inupiaq freely chose to settle. With survival on the line, they were intimately aware of Alaska’s everchanging environments, long before the theory of CO2?induced?climate?change could be blamed. Kivalina was a good seasonal hunting camp, but never valued as a permanent settlement. Indigenous Alaskans had wisely chosen to be semi-nomadic. Nonetheless the Inupiaq were victimized by  mis-guided government attempts to enforce “permanence” in an everchanging climate when the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) made it a permanent settlement in 1905.

 

As REVEAL reported, “The Inupiaq used to spend summers in tents along Kivalina's beach. When winter set in, they'd move inland to hunt caribou for food. They were semi-nomadic but in 1905 the federal government built a school on the island. Parents were threatened with jail time or losing their kids all together if they didn't send them to school.” In 1911 just 6 years after forced settlement, and long before any “dangerous sea level rise” or “dangerous sea ice reduction”, Kivalina’s schoolteacher Clinton Replogle warned that Kivalina should be relocated due to threats of flooding from ocean storms.

 

As with most  barrier islands, Kivalina island was formed from a loosely consolidated sand bar. Ocean waves drove sand and gravel back towards the coast where in the shallows it accumulated into a sand bar. Erosion by river flow on its landward side maintained a lagoon and the bar’s narrow width. Barrier islands form when rivers seeking an outlet to the ocean cut the sand bars into pieces. Kivalina’s river outlet is unstable. Some years it’s blocked by sand piled up during winter storm waves. Later it’s re-opened by river erosion. As Tribal Administrator Millie Hawley recently stated, “Kivalina was always eroding.”

 

Barrier islands form where shallow?sloping ocean floors minimize any loss of sand that might irretrievably wash away into the deeper ocean. However, such shallow ocean floors also amplify wave heights of approaching storms. Kivalina’s ultimate height, a mere 13 feet, was determined by the sediments dropped from overtopping waves. Kivalina was established within 1 to 2 feet of the high tide mark even though storms in late summer and the ice?free fall deliver waves 10 feet or higher. No wonder the threat of devastating storm surge and floods was so clear to Clinton Replogle. Indeed, geological surveys have revealed flooding from waves that had overtopped Kivalina happened at least twice between1905 and 1990.

 

In 1994, before climate change reduced Chukchi Sea ice, Inupiaq residents initiated a study to relocate. However,  in an economy based on subsistence harvesting of seals, walrus, whale, salmon, and caribou, funding for relocation was scarce. State and federal governments offered little support. So, after government reports touted “destructive global warming”, in 2011 the residents opted to file a lawsuit against the major oil companies arguing “Kivalina must be relocated due to global warming” and sought funds to cover an estimated cost of $95 million to $400 million. Although their lawsuit failed, previously little?cared?about Kivalina was thrust into the limelight as an icon of the “climate crisis”. Alarmist media outlets repeatedly claimed Kivalina was disappearing because increasing CO2 concentrations were raising sea levels and reducing sea ice. But the science suggests otherwise.

 

Sea levels across the Arctic vary as winds remove water from one region and pile it up in another. Along the Chukchi coast bordering Kivalina sea level had not risen since the 1990s.  Furthermore, summer winds cause warmer waters to flow northward through the Bering Strait, which initiates sea ice melt every year. Over the past few decades those winds doubled the volume of warm water flowing through the strait, melting more ice. In contrast to fears about less ice, more open water enhanced photosynthesis and increased the  marine food web that the Inupiaq depend on by 30% .

 

Air temperatures had risen twice as fast as elsewhere, because more Intruding warm water released more heat to the atmosphere and more open water absorbed more sunlight. That temperature dynamic was dubbed “Arctic Amplification”. However, most climate models now agree, it’s not the rising CO2 concentration but intruding warm Pacific water that drives Arctic Amplification.

 

Any connection between a greenhouse effect, increased warm water flow through the Bering Strait and Kivalina’s erosion remains to be seen. Kivalina is still an iconic example, not of a climate change crisis, but of media and government inattention to injustices perpetrated on indigenous Alaskans until it’s a useful political tool to fabricate a crisis. I suggest defunding the BIA for forcing settlements on vulnerable habitat and use BIA’s 1.9?billion?dollar budget to relocate the Inupiat to a place of their choosing.

 

Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus, authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism, and a member of the CO2 Coalition

 

 

Contact: naturalclimatechange@earthlink.net