AN EXTINCTION OF LOGIC?

1. AN EXTINCTION OF LOGIC? Dr. Patrick J. Michaels Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies Cato Institute Professor of Environmental Sciences University of Virginia

2. EXTINCTIONS AND CLIMATE CHANGE • Counter-Paradigm View Until Global Warming Became Popular • Instead, Extinctions Were Largely Driven by Population Dynamics and Competitive Exclusion • Pendulum Will Eventually Swing More to the Middle

4. Argentiere Glacier - 1966

5. Argentiere Glacier - 1850

6. 1 . 8 . 6 . 4 Temperature Departure (°C) . 2 0 - . 2 - . 4 - . 6 1 9 0 0 1 9 1 0 1 9 2 0 1 9 3 0 1 9 4 0 1 9 5 0 1 9 6 0 1 9 7 0 1 9 8 0 1 9 9 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 Year IPCC Northern Hemisphere Temperature History .

7. Cold Season Temperature Trends (1946-1995)

8. Warm Season Temperature Trends (1946-1995)

9. SEVERAL IMPORTANT RECENT PAPERS • Parmesan, C., 1996. Climate and species’ range. Nature, 382, 765-766. • Parmesan, C., et al., 1999. Poleward shifts in geographical ranges of butterfly species associated with regional warming. Nature, 399, 579–580.

10. CONCLUSIONS •Butterflies going extinct in Northern Mexico because of Climate Change •Butterflies are expanding in British Columbia because of Climate Change

11. Parmesan, 1996 Butterfly Census Sites Red triangle = absence Blue triangle = presence

12. Warm Season Temperature Trends (1946-1995)

13. UNITED NATIONS’ TEMPERATURE HISTORY ZONE OF MAXIMUM EXTINCTION Northern Mexico

14. UNITED NATIONS’ TEMPERATURE HISTORY ZONE OF MAXIMUM EXPANSION Southern British Columbia

15. TEMPERATURE CHANGE, HIGH-EXTINCTION GRIDCELLS Southern California minus rural Northern Mexico

16. FINDINGS FOR EUROPEAN BUTTERFLIES

17. NORTHERN END OF RANGE • 65% of species extended range northward • 35% exhibited no change • 2% exhibited no change

18. SOUTHERN END OF RANGE • 5% shifted south • 22% shifted northward • 72% remained stable

19. CONCLUSION Butterfly Diversity Increasing!

20. WORLD WILDLIFE FUND, 1996 PREDICTION: “Drier weather…could be particularly severe for birds in the Plains States of Canada and the United States [since] half of all North American ducks breed in prairie pothole wetlands that could disappear as a result of global warming.”

21. FACT: United Nations Precipitation Data North Central U.S. and South Central Canada

22. Gibbs, J. P., and A. R. Breisch. 2001. Climate warming and calling phenology of frogs near Ithaca, New York, 1900-1999. Conservation Biology,15, 1175-1178. PREDICTION: November-June warming is making frogs around Ithaca, New York croak earlier in the spring. Compared 1900-1912 to the 1990s.

23. FACT: There’s no significant difference in temperature in the periods studied

24. Kiesecker, J. M., A. R. Blaustein, and L. K. Belden. 2001. Complex causes of amphibian population declines. Nature,410, 681-684. CONCEPT: Ultraviolet radiation is damaging toad eggs in ponds in Oregon’s Cascade Range between 1990 and 1999 because of decreasing water levels caused by lowered precipitation in the winter.

25. FACTS: There’s no trend in October-March in the Cascades. Five of the last six years in the study period had above-average rainfall. What about the entire period from 1912-45, which was drier than any other? October-March Precipitation, Oregon Cascades Source: U.S. National Climatic Data Center

26. MARQUEE SPECIES Penguins and Polar Bears

27. WORLD WILDLIFE FUND, 2000: Polar Bears at Risk.

28. • 20 populations of Polar Bears • 46% stable, 17% in decline, 14% increasing, 23% “unknown” Strange Math!

29. ARCTIC TEMPERARTURE TRENDS 1950-1995 Przybylak, International Journal of Climatology, 2000. POLAR BEAR POPULATION TRENDS World Wildlife Foundation Yellow = unknown; green = stable blue = decreasing; red = increasing Yellow=no data;green=no significant change blue=cooling;red= warming

31. .8 .6 .4 .2 0 Temperature Departure (°C) -.2 -.4 -.6 -.8 -1 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 Year . Antarctic Temperature History (1956-2000)

32. -4 Summer -6 in Colony (°C) Average Temperature -14 -16 Winter -18 -20 6000 5000 Breeding Pairs 4000 3000 2000 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 Temperature History and Penguin Breeding Success

33. Root, T.L., et al., 2003. Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants. Nature, 421, 57-60. Parmesan, C., and G. Yohe, 2003. A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems. Nature, 421, 37-42. CONCEPTS: changes in the distribution of species are consistent with warming. Covered prominently by both New York and Los Angeles Times.

34. FACTS: No one, author or reporter, bothered to note the implications of the math. • Root: Average northward movement is 3.8 miles per decade, or 2,000 feet per year. This would put Washington DC’s biota in Baltimore around 2102. •Parmesan: At the current rate of change, spring, 2103 in Washington will arrive at the same time it does now in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Climate models generally predict constant, not increasing rates of warming)

35. THE MASSIVE EXTINCTION OF LOGIC

36. Thomas, C.D., et al, 2004. Extinction risk from climate change. Nature427, 145-148 QUOTE OF THOMAS IN WASHINGTON POST: “We’re talking about 1.25 million species. It’s a massive number.” QUOTE FROM PAPER: “Estimates for minimum expected climate change [‘0.8-1.7˚C’-p.147] are 9-13% extinction with dispersal and 22-31% without dispersal.”

37. FACT: We’ve already had this change. Where was the mass extinction from climate change? How could the reviewers miss this?

38. Balsam Fir Distribution