Endangered Cloud Forests, Clouds and Climate Change

 

Demagogues trumpet ecosystems are collapsing and allude to scientific assessments. For example, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the Gnarled Mossy Cloud Forest as “critically endangered”. So, what constitutes “critically endangered”? The Gnarled Mossy Cloud Forest story is telling.

 

The Gnarled Mossy Cloud Forest is located on the 5.6 square mile Lord Howe Island situated between Australia and New Zealand. For perspective, 54 islands could fit within the limits of New York City. Still, Lord Howe Island is an evolutionary marvel. Forty-four percent (105) of the island’s plant species, and 37% of all its invertebrate species are found nowhere else in the world. Additionally, the island supports the most poleward of all coral reefs. So, in 1982 Lord Howe Island was designated a World Heritage Area.

The “critically endangered” cloud forest is restricted to just 0.1 square miles atop the island’s extinct volcanic mountain. Researchers worried the cloud forest’s unique collection of species would have nowhere to go if global warming disrupted its environment.  Accordingly, the IUCN designates ecosystems with such limited distributions as critically endangered. Although confined to a small micro-climate, its species are very resilient to changing climates. Hundreds of thousands of years were required for the island’s unique species to evolve from their ancestors (after arriving from Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia). During that time, they survived alternating ice ages and warm inter-glacials.

 

Unchanging geography permits the existence of cloud forests. Most are found in the tropics where they experience 78-102 inches of annual rainfall. (For perspective, “rainy” Seattle averages just 38 inches of rain.) The photo below also illustrates why cloud forests are typically confined to zones within 220 miles of the coast, and above elevations of 1600 feet. Sea breezes are laden with water vapor. As they rise and cool, vapor condenses to form clouds. Rising air saturated with water vapor can cool enough to create clouds by rising over 20-story buildings. The Gnarled Mossy Cloud Forest exists around 2800 feet.

 

As human populations increased, land cultivation threatened cloud forests across the globe. However, due to low human populations and steep slopes the Gnarled Mossy Cloud Forest was spared excessive losses. However, as with Hawaii and all of earth’s unique island species, introduced species are the greatest extinction threat. Introduced cats, pigs and goats were damaging Lord Howe Island since the mid 1800s. Having recognized this threat, humans began programs to preserve the island’s species. Pigs and goats were eradicated by the 1980s, but the island’s plague of introduced rats remain problematic. To date, an introduced owl and poison bait projects struggle to limit rat populations.

 

In addition to rats, scientists suggested the cloud forest was threatened by a “loss of moisture from declining rainfall and cloud cover due to climate change.” However, scientists admitted their estimates were “based on limited information” and the real level of threat to the cloud forest could range from “Least Concern” to “Collapsed.” “Least Concern” may prove to be the correct designation as long-term global precipitation data show a slight increasing trend in the region.

 

Nonetheless, to support their catastrophic claims their study ill-advisedly alluded to a debunked 1999 study that claimed CO2-caused warming was drying the Costa Rican cloud forests by raising cloud elevations, and allegedly drove the Golden Toad to extinction. That climate attribution was absolutely wrong. The cloud forest amphibians were killed by an introduced chytrid fungus, spread by pet trade collectors, researchers and animals like introduced bullfrogs. Remarkably, the proposed worrisome warming and drying actually benefitted amphibians by killing the fungus. Similarly, Lord Howe’s cloud forest vegetation is potentially threatened by introduced fungi (Phytophthora), spread by tourists. So, steps are being taken to encourage “social distancing” near vulnerable native plants.

 

As with Costa Rica, Lord Howe Island endures periodic dryness associated with El Nino cycles. The island’s lowest recorded rainfall happened during the 1997 El Nino. Unfortunately, to blame climate change for a short-term drying trend, researchers ignored the fact that the second lowest rainfall happened in cool 1888 and differed from the “record low” 1997 rainfall by a scant 0.3 inches. Furthermore, research has determined cloud cover shifts across the Pacific due to El Nino cycles and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and regional tree rings reveal 55-year dry cycles amplified by El Nino.

 

Ecologists know surviving cloud forest species had to adapt to natural cycles of periodic dryness they endured over millennia, and indeed they did. One example is the Kentia Palm. Native only to Lord Howe Island, it’s a globally popular indoor house plant, in part, because it withstands long periods of neglect and irregular watering. So, take heart. The Gnarled Mossy Cloud Forest will not collapse with a changing climate. And although introduced species certainly are a threat, it is something people are rectifying.

Betting Against Collapsing Ocean Ecosystems

Betting Against Collapsing Ocean Ecosystems

In summer 2020, the media hyped various versions of “Tropical Oceans Headed For Collapse Within The Next 10 Years”. One outlet warned, “Global warming is about to tear big holes into Earth’s delicate web of life.” A single peer-reviewed paper instigated those apocalyptic headlines predicting CO2­­-caused warming would ramp-up species extinctions starting in tropical oceans. In contrast, I’ll confidently bet any climate scientist $1000 that no such thing will happen.

 

Sadly, some researchers hope to enhance their fame and fortune by offering dooms day scenarios. Profit hungry media and scientific journals with “if it bleeds, it leads” business models, abet that fear mongering.  Scientists also get consumed by their own fearful visions. Gaia scientist James Lovelock predicted by 2100 global warming would make the tropics uninhabitable and "billions of us will die” with a few breeding pairs surviving in the Arctic. (To his credit, Lovelock recanted his alarmism) Stanford’s Dr. Paul Ehrlich falsely predicted “hundreds of millions of people will starve to death” in the 1970s. So, we must ask, are collapsing oceans a real concern, or just another scientist from the “chicken little school of science” crying wolf?  We’ll know by 2030.

 

Fortunately, good scientists are urging “ocean optimism”, promoting lessons learned from our mistakes and successes. Overfishing and overhunting is definitely a significant threat to ocean ecosystems. Once hunted to near extinction for their oils, whales and sea lions are now rapidly recovering. Thanks to wise hunting regulations, Hawaii’s endangered humpback whales grew from just 800 individuals in 1979 to 10,000 by 2005. Turtle nests in Florida increased from “62 in 1979 to 37,341 in 2015” as North and South Atlantic green turtle populations increased by 2,000% and 3,000% respectively.

 

Likewise, fish populations are recovering with better fisheries management. Off the USA’s west coast,  uncontrolled bottom trawling extirpated several species. So, fishery managers implemented a complete fishing ban, as scientists expected recovery to take 100+ years. However within just 10 years a dramatic improvement prompted both environmentalists and regulators to agree to reopen much of the coast to trawling. Critical photosynthesizing algae, diatoms, rapidly flourish when upwelling brings nutrient rich, high CO2 deep waters back to sunlit surfaces. Diatom blooms stimulate zooplankton abundance which feeds fast-growing bait fish, like anchovies and sardines, thus sustaining a food web from tuna to whales. And more good news, since the 1850s warming has spurred dramatic increases in upwelling and marine life.

 

Michael Mann and Kevin Trenberth rule the roost within the chicken little school of science. They recently co-authored a “scary” paper titled Record-Setting Ocean Warmth Continued in 2019. Using the energy metric Zetta (1021) Joules, an incomprehensible foreign language for the public, they estimated 2019 warmed by 25 Zetta Joules. That converts to a not so scary  0.016 °F (0.009 °C) increase. Five thousand years ago, marine organisms thrived in waters that were about 2.7°F to 3.6°F warmer than today. At their alleged “record setting” warming pace, it would take four to six hundred years to reach those earlier temperatures.

 

To be fair, it’s extremely difficult to measure the oceans’ heat content. To improve our knowledge, a world-wide array of floating buoys, ARGO, was established by 2003 to measure temperature down to 2000 meters and periodically transmits data via satellite. We now realize ocean currents are far more complex than once thought, and due to constant changes in ocean heat transport, such as caused by El Niño, the ocean heat content requires distinguishing warmer temperatures due to heat redistribution versus warming from the sun or CO2. Unpredicted by climate models, ocean heat transport caused 90% of recently increased ocean heat to accumulate in a narrow band of the Southern Ocean outside the tropics, while the rate of northern hemisphere warming is decreasing.  However, ARGO data also reported cooler temperatures than previous less reliable ship measurements. Oddly, 0.216°F is added to the ARGO data. Such a large adjustment makes the estimated increase of 0.016°F/year highly uncertain.

 

There’s a further complication. Outside the tropics, the earth loses more heat than the sun or a greenhouse effect  can provide. It’s the transport of heat towards the poles that keeps temperatures outside the tropics much warmer than they would be otherwise.  In ancient climates of the Cretaceous and early Eocene, polar regions were far warmer than today with crocodiles in Greenland and lush coastal vegetation in Antarctica. Such “equable climates” are explained by changing continental configurations and stronger ocean currents carrying more heat from the tropics towards the poles. Yet, the tropics did not cool. Exported tropical heat was compensated by reduced cloud cover, which increased solar heating. Ocean oscillations that increase ocean heat transport today most likely explain the Arctic warming of the 1930s.  

Similarly, recent poleward, ice-melting heat transport, with reduced cloud cover that increases solar heating may explain much of our recent climate change. By 2030, we should know.

Preventing Ecosystem Collapse: Seagrass

Seagrass ecosystems enable a wondrous diversity of marine life. Seagrass feeds ancient (but currently threatened) animals like green turtles, manatees and dugongs, sea urchins, parrot fish and geese. Seagrass supports major fisheries of pollock and cod and they’re home to seahorses. The ecosystem serves as a nursery ground for hundreds of species of juvenile fish. Seagrass supports clams, scallops, shrimp and spiny lobsters. Recently, seagrass meadows have also been shown to reduce disease that can infect people, coral or fish. So, recent losses of seagrass have generated great concern and motivated restoration efforts world-wide. Still, they are not doomed to collapse. The good news is most of the human factors that have reduced seagrass meadows can be and are being remedied. Furthermore, rising levels of carbon dioxide will benefit their growth and recovery.

Unlike seaweeds that are anchored to hard surfaces, seagrass thrives on muddy or sandy bottoms where their roots absorb the rich supply of nutrients stored in the sediments. However, storms and heavy waves easily disturb such habitat. So, seagrass prefers sheltered estuaries, coves and bays. Unfortunately, sheltered waters are also prime real estate for humans to harbor their boats. Much seagrass habitat has been lost to dredging of boat harbors. The chains that anchor boats to their moorings can scour the sea floor as the boats shift with the tides and currents. Nets seeking tasty bottom fish are dragged across the seafloor but also plow up seagrass meadows. Fortunately, people are working to prevent such damage by restricting fishing zones or inventing seagrass friendly moorings. The ancestors of today’s seagrasses were flowering land plants that returned to the ocean a 100 million years ago. To photosynthesize, seagrass colonization was limited to shallow coastlines with clear water and adequate sunlight. Most species prefer water that’s only 3 to 9 feet deep. But to remain at the proper depths, seagrass had to be resilient. Ice ages caused sea levels to rise and fall 400 feet eliminating old habitat and creating new ones. None of today’s seagrass meadows existed 6000 years ago. The Everglades’ Florida Bay formed 4000 years ago. Since then, seagrass meadows have flourished and disappeared periodically, but are now at their greatest extent.

It would have been extremely difficult for seagrass ancestors to successfully invade the oceans under today’s atmospheric CO2 concentration and still photosynthesize. Carbon dioxide is quickly converted to less usable ions after entering the water. Under current concentrations, only 1% remains as vital CO2. However, a 100 million years ago, plants flourished under increased atmospheric CO2 that was up to 7 times greater (3000 ppm) than today (410 ppm). The biggest evolutionary hurdle for seagrasses was surviving toxic sediments. Seagrass meadows accumulate organic matter as leaves and shoots are grown and shed. Unfortunately, as bacteria decompose organic matter, they consume all the oxygen. Without oxygen, different bacteria convert sulfur molecules into toxic sulfides that could kill the grass. So, seagrasses evolved channels that transported oxygen from their leaves to their roots, creating an “oxygen shield.” Many species evolved symbiotic relationships with specific bacteria and clams. The clams benefit from the grass’ added oxygen and help aerate the sediment further. Bacteria sheltering in clams then convert toxic sulfides into harmless chemicals. Seagrass success largely depends on generating more oxygen than bacterial decay can consume, and that battle explains many seagrass die-offs, such as recent die-offs in the Everglades’ Florida Bay.

As human populations grew and settled along the coast, they altered seagrass ecosystems by clearing the land for lumber and agriculture, and by overgrazing. Increased soil erosion was carried to the sea creating murky ocean waters that reduced sunlight. Sewage runoff and agricultural fertilizers added nutrients that promoted plankton blooms, which also reduced sunlight. With less light, there is less photosynthesis to generate oxygen. Without enough oxygen, toxic sulfides can invade and kill the seagrass. The good news is such lost seagrass ecosystems are not happening everywhere, and many unaffected regions support prosperous seagrass ecosystems. It is not a global crisis. The losses due to past ignorance of the ecosystem’s natural dynamics are now being repaired. Seagrass meadows with improved water quality are thriving and people are now managing sediment runoff better and developing waste-water treatment to reduce nutrient pollution. A 2010 die-off of seagrass in Australia’s Shark Bay, now a World Heritage site, generated scary headlines in scientific journals and the mass media drumming up fears of an existential crisis. The seagrass died during a “marine heat wave” supporting beliefs that only global warming could kill seagrass in a relatively pristine and protected ocean bay. However, the “marine heat wave” alleged to have killed the seagrass, was caused by a strong La Niña that caused warmer tropical waters to be transported (via the Leeuwin current) down the west coast of Australia. These periodic and natural warm water intrusions have been dubbed the “Ningaloo Niño”. The northerly winds that drove that warm water southward also suppresses the normally cold air arriving from the Southern Ocean region. The normal upwelling of colder deep waters is also suppressed. Once the strong La Nina conditions waned, the regional climate reversed causing several years of cold spells.

The greatest diversity of seagrass species thrives in the warmest waters. So normally, scientists would expect that organisms exposed to a constantly changing climate, induced by periodic warm Ningaloo Niño, would have adapted to those natural temperature fluctuations. Indeed, the immediate seagrass killer now appears not to have been warmer temperatures. Years of heavy grazing by non-native cattle and sheep made the watershed that drained into Shark Bay increasingly vulnerable to erosion. La Niña’s coincidentally increase rainfall during Australia’s monsoon season. Those heavy rains and eroding soil combined to produce a murky river discharge that flowed 10 miles out into the bay. The closer Shark Bay’s seagrass meadows were to the river delta, the greater the die-off. Seagrass meadows escaping those light?reducing waters were typically still thriving. Hopefully the wrong analysis that blamed global warming, will not lead to bad remedies and misguide any efforts to protect Shark Bay from further lethal river discharge. Lastly, the legacy of seagrass reproduction created one other problem. In the 1930s along the coast of Virginia, hurricanes and disease had completely denuded several seagrass meadows. Seventy years later the seagrass had yet to return. Without flowering grasses there are no local seeds to initiate recovery. Seagrass seeds are heavy and quickly fall to the seafloor, so many seagrasses spread slowly. Without a very nearby seed supply, a denuded meadow may take centuries to recover. The good news is people are now harvesting seeds from distant healthy patches and sowing them where seagrass once thrived. By maintaining good water quality and minimizing boat-related damage, seagrass meadows are on the mend. Dependent fish and scallops are slowly recovering. Florida’s manatees have increased 6-fold and are no longer rated as endangered. But manatees need warm winter refuges. So, counter-intuitively, the biggest threat to manatees living in Florida’s seagrass ecosystem is the loss of power plants and the warm water discharge that has served as a manatee winter sanctuary.

12/31/2020 modified online version to be printed in BattleBorn Media newspapers Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus and authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism Contact: naturalclimatechange@earthlink.net

Preventing Ecosystem Collapse: Pt 2 Caribbean Coral

Media headlines have been promoting unrealistic fears of ecosystem collapse due to climate change. Such fears get supported when the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) designates some ecosystems as endangered, such as Caribbean Coral Reefs. But reefs are resilient and the human factors threatening individual reefs can be remedied.

 

The Caribbean reef ecosystem consists of thousands of individual reefs spanning from the east coast of Mexico and Central America to Florida and the Bahamas and south to the coast of Venezuela. Fifteen thousand years ago these reefs did not exist because sea level had fallen by 400 feet during the ice age. Modern reefs became established 8,000 years ago by colonizing newly flooded coastlines.

 

Caribbean Coral Reef Boundary

Based on one IUCN criterion the Caribbean reef ecosystem was designated “Least Concern” due to the widespread occurrence of individual reefs. In contrast, the loss of 59% of total coral cover between 1971 and 2006 prompted the IUCN to designate the reef system as “Endangered”.

 

Coral cover naturally fluctuates with seaweeds (macro-algae). Coral are killed by hurricanes, disease or bleaching,  which allows seaweeds too colonize the vacated space. The seaweed is gradually reduced by algae-eating animals which allows coral to return to their former dominance. Coral usually recover within 15 to 20 years, but recently their recovery has been extremely limited thus reducing coral cover. Unlike the demonized sea urchins that threaten Alaska’s kelp forest, algae-eating urchins are vitally important in maintaining the balance between seaweeds and Caribbean coral. The recent lack of coral recovery is largely attributed to a new disease that devastated urchin populations in the 1980s and minimized the urchins’ consumption of seaweeds.

 

Caribbean corals had been decimated in the 1980s by the novel White Band disease. However, that disease only affected two coral species from the genus Acropora - staghorn and elkhorn coral. Those species are now considered endangered. Acropora’s evolutionary strategy was to quickly colonize vacated shores produced by natural disturbances like hurricanes. These coral species thus dedicated their energy to rapid growth to out compete the seaweeds. That adaptation allowed staghorn and elkhorn coral to rapidly colonize flooded coasts as sea level recovered from the last Ice Age and dominate modern Caribbean reefs. But that strategy required diverting energy from building stronger reefs or resisting disease.  

 

Because Acropora require shallow habitat they’re vulnerable to storm damage. So, they evolved a reproductive strategy that produced new colonies by cloning new coral from storm damaged fragments. However, cloning reduces genetic diversity which also made them more vulnerable to new diseases.

 

Mortality from bleaching also reduced coral cover. Bleaching from unusually warm temperatures during summer 2005 and the 1998 El Nino is often highlighted. Surprisingly, fatal cold weather bleaching is rarely mentioned. Yet in January 2010 along the Florida Keys, cold weather killed 11.5 percent of the coral, which was 20 times worse than the 2005 warm weather mortality. Understanding why both warm and cold weather causes bleaching provides insight into how coral have successfully adapted to ever changing climates over the past 220 million years.

 

Shallow water corals depend on photosynthesizing symbiotic algae (aka symbionts) that provide over 90% of the coral’s energy. However, those corals will remove one symbiont species and acquire a new symbiont that is better adapted to the changing weather conditions. During the winter, colder temperatures and less light reduce photosynthesis. So, coral increase their density of symbiotic algae to counteract reduced productivity. But if it is too cold, the symbionts keep their energy supply for themselves. As a result, coral remove the “freeloaders” causing bleaching. A more productive cold?tolerant symbiont must then be acquired, or the coral die.

Coral polyp with inner symbiotic algae 

 

In contrast during the summer, more light and higher temperatures produce so much energy, coral reduce their number of symbionts. Because photosynthesis also produces potentially harmful chemical by-products, coral remove symbionts to reduce the production of harmful chemicals. That too causes coral to bleach, and unless a better adapted symbiont is  acquired, the coral will die. Despite that mortality risk, research now shows by switching their symbionts, coral can quickly adapt to warmer or cooler climates and enhance the species survival.

 

Studying fossil reefs, scientists determined that Caribbean corals had been declining decades before widespread bleaching and disease outbreaks occurred. Growing human populations cleared the land for farms, sugarcane and banana plantations. Resulting soil runoff reduced water clarity required for efficient photosynthesis. Increased sewage also reduced clarity and introduced pathogens. Those stressors made coral more susceptible to subsequent bleaching and disease. Soil runoff also added nutrients that tipped the ecological balance to favor seaweed growth, while overfishing removed seaweed?eating fish that once restricted seaweed dominance.

 

We can, and are controlling soil runoff and treating sewage. Fishing regulations are restoring the ecosystem that had balanced seaweeds and coral. And with those protections, naturally resilient coral will steadily recover.

Preventing Ecosystem Collapse: Alaska’s Kelp Forests

Over the past few years the media, such as the NY Times, have hyped a coming apocalypse and an existential crisis as ecosystems collapse. Inside Climate News, one of the more egregious fear mongers suggests “Global Warming Could Collapse Whole Ecosystems, Maybe Within 10 Years”. In contrast, most scientists agree ecosystems are very complex and still not well understood. By understanding each ecosystem’s unique pressures from humans, other organisms and natural climate change, perhaps we can make ecosystems more resilient and prevent the alleged "crises".

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the foremost scientific organization evaluating threats to species and ecosystems, has created the “Red List of Ecosystems” that provides assessments that characterize threats to individual ecosystems.  To date, only one ecosystem has collapsed, central Asia’s Aral Sea. It’s the world’s fourth largest inland water body. Landlocked, its fate is determined by the balance between inflowing water and evaporation. But 2000 years of irrigation has disrupted that balance. Between 1950 and 2007, irrigation nearly quadrupled causing the Aral Sea to largely dry up, eliminating most of its species. The Aral Sea has been sacrificed in order to feed a growing population. However most other ecosystems have a more optimistic future.

 

The first IUCN Endangered ecosystem I’ll examine in a series of articles is Alaska’s giant kelp forests. The fate of kelp forests is largely determined by the interactions between urchins, otters, humans and killer whales.  Hungry kelp-eating urchins can quickly convert a kelp forest into an urchin barren stripped of kelp. However, urchins are regulated by their primary predator, sea otters. Before Alaska’s fur trade began in the mid 1700s, otter populations and kelp forests flourished. One hundred and fifty years later overhunting exterminated or reduced all otter populations, urchins proliferated and kelp forests declined. Alarmed, a 1911 international treaty forbade hunting otters. To further their recovery, otters were re-introduced to islands where they had been eliminated. With improved human stewardship, otters rebounded to their pre-hunting abundance by 1980. With fewer urchins, kelp forests flourished again. But then killer whales began overhunting otters.

FIg 1.  Extent of Alaska's kelp forests: From the Aleutian Islands in the west to southeastern Alaska.

Each killer whale population has a specialized feeding strategy. Some strictly eat fish while others feed on marine mammals. Some congregate around Alaska’s eastern Aleutian Islands near Unimak pass to prey upon migrating gray whale calves. In the 1980s some killer whales began reducing Steller sea lion and harbor seal populations along Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. An autopsy of one killer whale revealed 14 research tags originally attached to endangered Steller sea lions. As seal and sea lion populations declined, killer whales increased their intake of otters, which allowed urchins to again multiply.  

 

Mostly due to killer whale predation, otter populations declined by 50% to 80% and kelp forests declined by 50% between 1980 and 2000  Those declines prompted the designation of kelp forests as Endangered and possibly Critically Endangered. However more recent surveys evoke hope. Along the coast of Alaska from the peninsula south, otter populations have been steadily increasing at a rate of 12-14% a year and there kelp forests dominate. However depleted otter populations throughout Alaska’s Aleutian Islands still remain at 50% of their 1980 abundance. There, with fewer otters sea urchin barrens became more common.

 

 

 

Although these biological interactions control ecosystem shifts between kelp forests and urchin barrens, climate factors play a role, and in a most positive way. Otters are limited by ice. In places like Glacier Bay where ice has retreated, otter habitat is expanding. Likewise, kelp benefit from less sun-blocking ice while greater concentrations of carbon dioxide enhance photosynthesis and promote more growth. Life is good.

 

published in Battle Born Media What's Natural column

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

Contact: naturalclimatechange@earthlink.net

Children and the Insect Apocalypse

The American Psychological Association reports young people are suffering from  “a chronic fear of environmental doom”. A recent national survey reported “eco-anxiety” is causing 43 percent of our youth to feel hopeless. Psychologists warn such hopelessness leads to suicide, drug addiction and anti-social behavior. Why such eco-anxiety?  Their hopelessness is driven solely by media narratives. Young people lack the scientific knowledge, lack years of observation, and have yet to acquire the critical thinking skills needed to detect any ecosystem collapse. Its headlines like the Guardian’s, “Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten collapse of nature”, that induce paranoia that “insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, and threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”.

 

In contrast, most scientists studying insects readily admit science lacks the data to make such apocalyptic claims. Science has only identified about one million of an estimated 6 to 10 million insect species worldwide, and only a small percentage of those named species have enough data to evaluate their biology, behavior, or changes in abundance. Nonetheless “the last 3 years have seen a global outbreak of media headlines predicting a global insect apocalypse” and scientists are concerned that such “confusing and inaccurate science” will negatively affect support for insect conservation”. Many have published critiques exposing “the insect apocalypse myth.” 

 

Worse, apocalyptic myths are damaging our children’s mental health. Competing for readership with supermarket tabloids, the New York Times announced, “The Insect Apocalypse Is Here”. The Guardian fearmongered, “Insect apocalypse’ poses risk to all life on Earth”. And despite her lack of the requisite scientific knowledge, the United Nations invited 16-year old Greta Thunberg to lecture the world that “entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction”. 

 

How do we protect our children from succumbing to bogus  “chicken little science”? We must teach them to be good critical thinkers. My parents always warned, “believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.” The world’s oldest scientific motto advises, “Take no one’s word.” To maintain objectivity, us scientists were advised to entertain “multiple working hypotheses”. Likewise, adults must teach children to question all fearful claims. But due to the politicization of science, many adults refuse to read anything outside their beliefs. Many indiscriminately share catastrophic headlines without any critical analysis. For the sake of our kids’ mental health, many “psychologists warn parents and guardians against being climate change alarmists."

 

The apocalyptic NY Times headlines were prompted by a severely flawed German study claiming 75% of flying insects declined in 27 years. That study surveyed insects at 69 different locations, but 37 locations were surveyed only once, and 20 locations were surveyed just twice. Such snapshots of abundance at one location in just one or two years can never determine a meaningful  trend. Never! That’s bad science. Yet the media eagerly elevated a flawed study from just one small region of Germany to suggest a global insect Armageddon.

 

The media simultaneously highlighted another single study by Dr Lister in a Puerto Rican forest to implicate a “global climate crisis”. Researchers claimed higher local temperatures devastated insect abundance and collapsed frog and bird populations that feed on insects. However the media ignored longer term research in the same forest that refuted the temperature claim. It reported that after a destructive hurricane new and more edible vegetation began regenerating and enabled an abnormally higher abundance of opportunistic forest insects, frogs and birds. Unfortunately, Lister’s first survey happened in the 1970s when insect populations had spiked. His second survey happened in 2015 after the forest had matured and insect abundance dropped to normal pre-hurricane numbers. Lister had misinterpreted half of a natural population fluctuation as a catastrophic decline driven by climate change.

 

Giving less attention to optimistic studies is not unusual. Where were media headlines that moths more than doubled in Great Britain over the past 50 years? Why no media fanfare for the 2020 peer-reviewed study that found no change in US insect abundance since 1980?  That study evaluated a network of Long-Term Ecological Research sites established by the National Science Foundation. They found at some sites insect abundance and diversity increased or was unchanged, while at other locations there was a slight decrease. The result? No net change.

 

Although transforming natural habitat into agricultural land greatly benefitted people, it did reduce insect populations. However due to better conservation efforts and efficient farming practices, agricultural lands that once covered 63% of America in 1949 were reduced to 51% by 2007. (Unfortunately, due to biofuel subsidies, agricultural land increased in the Corn Belt.) Additionally, genetically modified plants continue to reduce the indiscriminate spraying of insecticides once practiced in the days of aerial crop dusting.

 

To trust the science, we must examine all the science. We can then honestly tell our children why there’s great hope for our future.

 What’s Natural?

 

Sea level rise and Antarctica

 

California and other American coastal towns are engaged in divisive arguments regards rising sea levels. Although observed sea levels rose less than 8 inches (0.08 inches per year) since 1900, some modelers forecast much bleaker futures. They predict a 2.4-foot rise for every 1°F rise above preindustrial temperatures, then accelerating to nearly 4.5 feet for every 1°F additional increase. Why a dramatic acceleration in sea level? It’s based primarily on dire models, typically presented to coastal planning commissions as ‘best science’, suggesting increasing ice instability and Antarctica ice sheet collapse. “Antarctica has the potential to contribute more than 3.3 feet of sea-level rise by 2100 and more than 49 feet by 2500.”

 

Those models have prompted some citizens to argue we must abandon the coasts via managed retreat. Others argue we should build better sea walls. But how high? Others rightfully ask, “how trustworthy are those models?” Model predictions of a collapsing Antarctica ice sheet are not based on observations.  Models of Antarctica’s catastrophic ice collapse are attempts to explain ancient sea levels such as the 30-foot higher levels 120,000 years ago.

 

There are good reasons to question catastrophic models. For one, away from the coast Antarctica’s surface temperatures average −70 °F. Antarctica’s extremely cold surfaces require global warming to increase many, many times more before surface glaciers could ever melt. For another, although greenhouse theory predicts increasing CO2  concentrations will raise temperatures, greenhouse theory also predicts added CO2  has a cooling effect on Antarctica (Wijngaarden & Happer 2020, Schmithüsen 2015).

 

Up to a point, increasing greenhouse gases  act like a blanket that warms your body by slowing your loss of body heat. Although CO2  absorbs then rapidly releases heat in less than one-thousandth of a second, at colder altitudes it releases that heat more slowly. Because warner bodies release more heat than colder ones, the higher and colder atmosphere absorbs the heat released from warmer surfaces faster than it can release heat to space generating the greenhouse effect. In contrast Antarctica’s surface is much colder and the air miles above is warmer.  Warmer greenhouse gases in the air above release heat back to space faster than can be absorbed from the colder surface. Thus, the atmosphere over Antarctica cools faster than if there were no greenhouse gases.

 

Still, researchers do observe regions of retreating ice. The Antarctic Peninsula was once designated one of the earth’s most rapidly warming regions in the 1980s and 90s, but researchers debated whether melting was caused by global warming or shifting winds. Indeed, warmer winds had been frequently blowing from the north. But the British Antarctic Survey now reports the peninsula has rapidly cooled since the 1990s due to frequent southerly winds from the mainland that can be 50°F to 70°F  colder.  Researchers attribute shifting winds to “extreme natural internal variability”. Similarly periods of accelerating ice melt in Greenland is attributed to natural changes in the winds

 

Strong winds also cause turbulence that sporadically pulls warmer air from above down to the cold surface resulting in occasional “warming” spikes. Furthermore, strong winds moving over mountains can heat the air simply due to increasing pressure as the winds descend (known as foehn storms).  Without adding heat, the increasing air pressure alone can raise regional temperatures in excess of 72°F eventually causing dry, ice-free regions or causing melt ponds that promote ice shelf collapse.

 

Finally, because air temperatures rarely reach the melting point (other than during foehn storms), there is no significant melt of Antarctica’s surface ice. However, some glaciers that extend past the coast terminate below sea level and are indeed losing ice. Antarctic oceans consist of a relatively fresh cold layer of surface water that overlays a thick layer of relatively warm salty water known as the Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW).

 

Antarctic winds can push cold surface water towards the coast and then deeper.  That also pushes the warmer CDW downward and minimizes glacier melting. At other times the winds can  shift and cause surface water to move away from the coast and simultaneously draw up warmer CDW toward the surface. The warm CDW then accelerates the melting of submerged glaciers. Natural oscillations such as El Nino or the Antarctic Oscillation (aka SAM) can shift the winds and induce decades of rapidly retreating glaciers alternating with decades of stable or growing glaciers.

Antarctica’s research community is split 50-50 on whether observed changes are mostly natural or driven by human additions of CO2. But to date there’s no evidence of an ice sheet collapse that would accelerate sea level rise, and many researchers are walking back the extreme claims of Antarctica’s sea level contributions. Coastal planning commissions would be wise to plan on the same average sea level rise witnessed for the past 100 years but be mindful of Antarctica’s shifting winds and shifting scientific claims. 

Contact: naturalclimatechange@earthlink.net