is it getting warm in here?

July 13, 2005

Vancouver Sun, Page A15, 13-Jul-2005

Climate change is upon us, and we're not going to like it

By Stephen Hume

Off Newfoundland, ocean temperatures in 2004 reached highs in the North Atlantic

not seen since records were first kept. Sea ice cover was below normal for the

10th straight year.

Off the British Columbia coast, ocean temperatures also rose sharply. Exotic

warm water species like the jumbo flying squid moved in. Some native cold water

species declined sharply.

Scientists describe last year's ocean temperatures as " extraordinary. " Climate

change is a factor, they say.

Fifty-five million years ago, atmospheric carbon dioxide increased at roughly

the same rate humans pump it out today. Oceans warmed, perhaps five degrees at

the equator and nine degrees at the poles. Seas became acidic. Mass extinctions

of marine creatures followed.

In the dry Interior, a pine beetle infestation is expected to kill 80 per cent

of the province's lodgepole forests by 2013. That's 25 to 30 per cent of B.C.'s

commercial timber inventory.

Cold winters limit beetle population growth -- but winters are increasingly

mild. Pine beetles can exploit more northerly and higher elevation habitats.

Foresters worry that the beetle will soon adapt to jack pine. If it invades this

new ecological niche, the nightmare goes transcontinental.

Interior resource towns may boom today because the race is on to harvest

beetle-killed timber before it burns or decays. When that feedstock is depleted,

as it quickly will be, they may face grim prospects.

Water temperatures in the Fraser River basin reached record highs last year.

Millions of sockeye salmon failed to reach the spawning grounds. A few blamed

poachers. But scientists have been warning for more than a decade that climate

change threatens sockeye survival throughout the basin because of rising water

temperatures and diminished flows.

Flow regimes are affected not just by temperature, but by logging upper slopes

in watersheds, riparian zones and headwaters where forest cover attenuates the

spring melt. Fewer trees, faster runoff. Such logging goes on only with

government approval.

Far to the south, as Hurricane Dennis rumbled across the Caribbean, 500,000

people were told to leave the Gulf Coast. Ironically, there were fears Gulf of

Mexico oil production might be disrupted by the fourth major storm in four

weeks. Ironic because burning fossil fuels is the major human contribution to

greenhouse gases. And scientists say oceans warmed by climate change mean more

powerful hurricanes, more torrential downpours and more flooding.

When scientists at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton and

the Center for Coast Physical Oceanography at Old Dominion University in

Virginia calculated different arrangements of warmer oceans and atmospheric and

storm dynamics they found every combination yielded the same results -- bigger,

badder hurricanes.

Far to the north, polar bear specialists warn that the 20,000 to 25,000 polar

bears known to inhabit the Arctic could decline by 30 per cent as warming

reduces sea ice habitat. Polar bears on the west coast of Hudson Bay have

already declined 17 per cent in the past decade.

Meanwhile, researchers using satellites to map climate-related changes report

that 125 large lakes have simply vanished from the Arctic since 1985.

Everywhere, ominous warning signs. And yet our dance of denial continues.

Seventy-five million North Americans drive pickups and SUVs. Because of their

weight, they emit more pollutants but in the United States qualify for tax

deductions. The U.S., the world's biggest oil hog and greenhouse polluter,

repudiates the Kyoto protocols that seek to limit emissions by industrial

nations. Developing nations say they shouldn't have to limit emissions.

Bob May, president of the Royal Society, warns that professional skeptics, many

funded by the fossil fuel industry, actively undermine legitimate scientists who

voice concerns. This lobby has a " poisonous " influence on we in the media, he

warns.

Here at home, faced with a climate change-induced environmental catastrophe in

the pine beetle outbreak, threats to a once-vast fishery and terrifying forest

fires, the provincial government says its strategy for aiding affected

communities is -- more oil, gas and coal production.

Fifty-five million years ago, atmospheric carbon dioxide increased, oceans

warmed and seas became acidic. Mass extinctions of marine creatures followed.

Do we really want to go some place like that any time soon?

shume

" God was my co-pilot, but we crashed in the Andes and I had to eat him. "

July 13, 2005

On a personal note, I can attest to the damages of pine beetles. I live at

3,000 in the area known as the Trinity Alps. 90% of this county is national

forest, Ponderosa pine, Doug Fir, Gray pine, Sugar pine, oak, etc. Almost

nothing kills a Ponderosa pine except its own faulty construction (they snap

in half, they fall over without reason, etc.). You cann't drive anywhere

now without seeing brown tops or dead trees. They are now attacking the

Doug firs. We have cut down 6 trees so far and have five more that have

died since last year.

30 years ago during the winter snows you would be stuck up here for weeks to

a month and a half at a time. There was no mail service for at least half

the winter. 20 years ago you would be stuck for weeks at a time. 10 years

ago you would be stuck for a week or two. This last winter is now typical.

As long as you have chains you can get anywhere in the valley and even up

and over the pass. The only time mail service is interrupted is when there

is a slide (and we have a lot of those <g>) or a vehicle wreck (and we have

a lot of those too!).

50 years ago on the coast (I grew up in the SF Bay Area and Humboldt

County), we had FOG! Pea soup, so thick you had to cut it with a knife, no

one drove on the roads, fog. Even 20 years ago we still had some mighty

thick fogs occasionally. Those fogs are also gone.

Lynda