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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2001 Under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Program About 100 Nations (Including all Industrial Nations) have Accepted these Findings www.ipcc.ch JJM Changes in temperature extremes JJM IPCC JJM Projected for 2100 JJM IPCC There are discernible and consistent ecosystem responses to a warmer world • Among the 2500 published studies, data for only 533 species/systems met the criteria for two decades of trend and could be tested for response to documented temperature changes. • 80% of the changes in distribution/behavior of organisms were consistent with changes in local temperature • Recent regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases, have already affected many physical and biological systems JJM IPCC JJM IPCC analysis of biotic responses • Over 2500 scientific papers that purported to provide evidence for a change in the distribution of an organism, the timing of its migrations, reproduction, etc. were reviewed • At least two decades of data were required to qualify as a consistent trend. • Where there was a plausible temperature dependent hypothesis for such a change, local/regional temperature data were sought to test the hypothesis. JJM IPCC The Sound of One Species Clapping * Humans are responsible for fastest rate of extinction since dinosaurs * Human beings continue to dominate "Survivor: Earth," voting other species off the island at a blistering pace. "In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of earth, and the greatest since the dinosaurs disappeared, 65 million years ago," sums up the new U.N. Global Biodiversity Outlook report. * A global goal to significantly reduce biodiversity loss by 2010 appears to be, shall we say, not on track: the current extinction rate is 1,000 times faster than historical rates of loss. JJM Northern hemisphere continental ice has shrunken since the last glacial maximum & most of what is left is on Greenland JJM Typical ice in the central Arctic early 1990s JJM Typical conditions within 50 miles of the North Pole, summers of 2000 & 2001 JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM • Climate Change Shattering Marine Food Chain • Stephen Leahy • BROOKLIN, Canada, Apr 10 (IPS) - Vast swaths of coral reefs in the Caribbean sea and South Pacific Ocean are dying, while the recently-discovered cold-water corals in northern waters will not survive the century -- all due to climate change. • • The loss of reefs will have a catastrophic impact on all marine life. One-third of the coral at official monitoring sites in the area of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have recently perished in what scientists call an "unprecedented" die-off. • Extremely high sea temperatures in the summer and fall of 2005 that spawned a record hurricane season have also caused extensive coral bleaching extending from the Florida Keys to Tobago and Barbados in the south and Panama and Costa Rica, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch. • High sea temperatures are also killing parts of Australia's 2,000-kilometre-long Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest living reef formation. As summer ends in the Southern Hemisphere, researchers are now investigating the extent of the coral bleaching. Up to 98 percent of the coral in one area has been affected, reported the Australian Institute of Marine Science last week. • "The Great Barrier Reef has been living on this planet for 18 million years and we've undermined its existence within our lifetimes," says Brian Huse, executive director of the Coral Reef Alliance, a U.S.-based NGO dedicated to protecting the health of coral reefs. • "Twenty percent of Earth's reefs have been lost and 50 percent face moderate to severe threats," Huse told IPS. JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM JJM Healthy Acropora sp. JJM Bleached Acropora sp. JJM
