(AFP PHOTO / OLIVIER GILG / NEWSCOM / FILE)
Climate change threatening lemmings
By Eoin O'Carroll | 11.06.08
I’ll admit that my first reaction to this news was, “Who cares?” Of all the critters imperiled by human activity, why worry about the ones that persistently commit mass suicide?
Except that it turns out that lemmings do not, in fact, intentionally hurl themselves into the sea. It’s a myth. Yes, the northern rodents have experienced periodic population booms, prompting them to migrate en masse to new territory, sometimes drowning or being trampled along the way. But not deliberately. The lemming, like every other animal, tends to prefer being alive.
Apparently, the myth took hold with the 1958 Disney documentary “White Wilderness.” Instead of shooting an actual migration, the filmmakers took it upon themselves to transport a few dozen lemmings to a riverbank in Alberta, Canada, a landlocked province where the animals are not native. They then tossed the rodents off a cliff into the “sea” and filmed them as they drowned, thus propagating a persistent urban legend. You can watch the clip on YouTube. For its efforts, the allegedly pro-rodent studio won an Oscar for Best Documentary.
But now the Arctic arvicolines are facing a threat even more menacing than Disney’s filmmakers: global warming. According to Reuters, a study of Norwegian lemmings from 1970 has found that the creature’s periodic population spikes, which normally occur every three to five years, ended in 1994. Warmer temperatures, say the study’s authors, have created wetter snow, which makes it more difficult for the lemmings burrow into it to reach food and avoid predators. Their study appears in the current issue of Nature.
It would be bad enough if it were just the lemmings that were dying off, but their absence is being felt throughout Norway’s ecosystems. Populations of Arctic foxes and snowy owls have depended on lemming booms for food, and now they are turning to other animals, such as the grouse (a bird that, contrary to another widespread myth, does not make frequent, petty complaints).
Norway’s lemmings, foxes, and owls are still far from going extinct, but it’s only getting worse: Reuters notes that late winter and early spring temperatures in southeastern Norway in recent decades are the highest since records began in 1756.
As the north pole continues to warm, the fragility of Arctic ecosystems is becoming ever more unmistakable. Far from being a frozen wasteland, the lands to the north are home to a finely tuned arrangement of water, soil, plants, animals, chemicals, and microbes that, when disrupted even slightly, can lead to cascading failure. I’d use this as an opportunity to condemn reliance on fossil fuels, if only I could come up with a valid metaphor for mindlessly marching toward disaster.
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2. NOTGONNATELLYOU | 11.07.08
If you really knew what you were talking about perhaps you would be on to something. Disney did not throw Lemmings off cliffs. There will be no Rapture and if there was you would be left on Earth. Evolution has been proven by your ability to navigate the internet. Please go back to teaching the lessons of the lord in your Church. Leave Science to real Scientists and stop talking about things you know nothing about.
Have a great life
3. Thomas Sosebee | 11.07.08
Monteen McCord:
you are both right and wrong, horribly wrong. Take this into consideration. Your house changes temperature during the day (yes because of the sun), but say that you had a frozen block of methane in your living room (what is under permafrost) as your house heats up that block of methane starts melting and your house is full of the methane gas, which makes everything heat up faster, which makes more methane melt, so on and so on. We are only adding about 1 to 2 percent change into the system - a 4 percent change is enough to kill off large amounts of people (impoverished ones) and animals. While our amount of impact is small we are changing an ecosystem. When you mess with a cycle it effects everything, every aspect of life on earth will change because of this. Yes the earth can fix itself from this, by killing all of us off.
4. cirquelar | 11.07.08
Would people -please- stop using the fact that Mars is ‘warming’ as evidence against human-induced warming on Earth! Mars experiences dramtic climatic variation becauses the tilt of the planet (i.e. obliquity) changes rapidly (every ~100000 years) between 0 and ~45 degrees (sometimes Mars’ ‘north pole’ is north and sometimes its closer to its equator. BTW, Earth’s tilt is approximately 23.5 degrees and fairly stable). The change in obliquity causes Mars’ warming/cooling cycles MORE THAN THE VARIABLE OUTPUT OF THE SUN! ’nuff said.
5. Nate | 11.07.08
Monteen - every major scientific body IN THE WORLD disagrees with you. Every one.
Wikipedia’s entry on Scientific opinion on climate change
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change -
states that “no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate.”
In addition, the science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States have issued a joint statement in 2007 saying “It is unequivocal that the climate is changing, and it is very likely that this is predominantly caused by the increasing human interference with the atmosphere. These changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken.”
Deny it all you want, but your opinion (and my opinion) doesn’t mean squat.
I choose to believe the scientists.
6. Richard | 11.07.08
Monteen -
Yes, human activity is not responsible for ALL climate shifts however one thing you cannot deny is that CO2 is being found in concentrations not seen even over the pervious “natural” warming and cooling periods.
7. gc | 11.07.08
This is obviously quite technical stuff, and cannot be resolved on a blog. I believe based on the evidence that human activity is damaging the planet. I didn’t know about the Mars thing and I didn’t know about the answer.
I am currently a solar scientist and agree that solar weather has in the past caused climate change here. But from a qualitative point of view consider the following:
Look at a picture of Manhattan from Statten Is. and observe the cloud of smog.
Look at a picture of Beijing.
Human activity can clearly greatly affect air quality in cities.
Ancient Greece was a landscape of forests. Now due to human activity causing erosion it is a rock.
When Mt St. Helens in Washington state blew up in the 80s it released 0.67 cubic miles of ash. The ash encircled the globe in days and as measured took a couple years to clear from the atmosphere.
I understand that this has nothing to do with global warming which is generated high levels of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere.
However my point is that Human activity may causes measurable changes, and that 1 volcano errupting once can have an imediate global impact. It is then a plausible statement that human activity continually pumping pollution into the atmosphere ‘could’ have a global effect. The evidence is there already and is well documented.
8. TechnoPagan | 11.07.08
“Mars is even heating up!”
—————————–
I often hear the tinfoil hat crowd parroting this strawman argument, then tearing it down with the equally stupid “where are the SUV’s on mars?” mock question.
I’ve even heard these people claim that the “ice caps” on mars are melting. If you can believe that!
According to these people, we cant accurately make any determination about our own planet or what our contribution to its condition is. Despite the fact that we’ve been recording temperature directly on this planet for several hundred years, and through scientific analysis of core samples we have a good understanding of temperature patterns dating back hundreds of thousands of years. But thats all political-agenda driven voodoo and witchcraft to these people, and cant be trusted.
But strangely enough, these same people seem to know with great certainty that Mars is indeed warming up - despite the fact that our best information about the planet comes from 1 tiny probe, the size of a remote-control toy car, that has only been on the planet for a few months.
I salute these people of logic and reason!
9. Gabe | 11.07.08
“Mars is even heating up!”
Yeah your smart and im sure the ignorance helps you sleep at night. that is like saying saying ohh dont worry about the stock market it goes up and down. Yeah usally by 10-50 points not 800. Now imagine this with tempature. Ohh it goes up and down but instead of up by 1 degree its going up by 80 then down by 200. As hmans we have the power to mess around with natures cycles. Just becasue there is a natural cycle it doesnt mean that nothing bad is happening
10. scientific_view | 11.08.08
“Ancient Egypt used to be an oasis, but now it’s a hot, miserable desert. Were there SUV’s to screw up the climate 10 thousand years ago? Nope. Nope. Nope. It’s that crazy yellow thing in the sky. It giveth and it taketh away.”
Actually it’s bad agriculture AND global warming. The agricultural effect on CO2 and global warming has been happening for at least 3000 years.
11. Chip | 11.11.08
Want to curb more greenhouse gases than not driving?
A 2006 United Nations report found that the meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the SUVs, cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined. Greenhouse gases cause global warming, which studies show will increasingly lead to catastrophic disasters—like droughts, floods, hurricanes, rising sea levels, and disease outbreaks—unless we drastically reduce the amounts emitted into the atmosphere.
Many conscientious people are trying to help reduce global warming by driving more fuel-efficient cars and using energy-saving light bulbs, but they could do more simply by going vegetarian.
According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads.
The University of Chicago reports that going vegan is 50% more effective than switching to a hybrid car in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
More than Just CO2
Raising animals for their flesh, eggs, and milk is one of the world’s leading emitters of carbon dioxide (CO2). But global warming is caused by more than just CO2. Animal agriculture is the leading source of methane and nitrous oxide emissions, which—combined with carbon dioxide—causes the vast majority of global warming.
Methane: The billions of farmed animals crammed into factory farms produce enormous amounts of methane, both during digestion and from the acres of cesspools filled with feces that they excrete. Methane is more than 20 times as powerful as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in our atmosphere.5 Statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency show that animal agriculture is the number one source of methane emissions in the U.S.6
Nitrous Oxide: Nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide. According to the U.N., the meat, egg, and dairy industries account for a staggering 65 percent of worldwide nitrous oxide emissions.7
12. Frustrated | 11.11.08
I just can’t believe how some people actually buy the “mere blip on the cosmic radar screen” argument.
“How can us ‘lowly’ humans possibly affect things on such a grand scale?”
Billions of years ago, life on Earth was dominated by anaerobic organisms, as the Earth’s atmosphere had next to no oxygen.
Then, along came cyanobacteria bacteria that generated oxygen. The oxygen killed off the anaerobic organisms since it was poisonous to them.
This caused the cyanobacteria bacteria to flourish, and, eventually, gave rise to all of us oxygen breathers.
If mere bacteria can change the face of the earth, don’t you think we can, too?
13. Richard Waldron | 11.12.08
This observation was also published at Science News. The last paragraph of the Science News article says it all:
“Because scientists understand remarkably little about many species interactions within an ecosystem, the new findings illustrate the importance of long-term studies of animal and plant populations, he adds.”
To ascribe the population changes to global warming as opposed to any number of causes that have not been ruled out, is sheer fantasy. Scientists with impeccable credentials have published many papers in refereed journals that contradict the IPCC’s global warming mechanism. That trace amounts of CO2 drive our climate to the exclusion of all the other phenomena that affect temperature has become a religion. Whenever any contradictory evidence to global warming is cited, the true believers rush to the defense of “the truth”, just as Galileo was silenced by the Pope for heresy.
Cold fusion, polywater, and eugenics have all be discredited through additional research. Global warming as promoted by the IPCC will soon join this list.
14. Matilda Putulik | 11.12.08
Well this is Matilda Putulik and I live in a small town called Repulse Bay Nunavut…….Well i just wanted to tell eveyone that we have a lemming in a School it’s Tusikvik School and my techer don’t like killing a animal will we are keeping the lemming soo it kinda dieing and my teacher is soo sad soo we are seching a thing that make him fell happy and not sick!!
15. Mike Higgins | 11.17.08
It’s obvious that this discussion could use a healthy dose of reality…
First of all, all the studies … let me repeat, ALL of the studies … used to support the theory of human-caused global warming are based on computer models of the climate, which are based on assumptions of what climate scientists know about the climate at this time. Interestingly, most credible climate scientists will tell you that there are many things that they don’t understand about what causes the climate and temperature to change.
Secondly, computer models are completely dependent upon the person programming the model. In other words, computer models can be programmed to produce whatever result desired by the programmer. Computer models are hardly definitive evidence. The proof of a computer model is how well it simulates reality. You can see by the graph at the following link that the major computer models have done a very poor job at predicting the Earth’s average temperature over the past 20 years.
See http://icecap.us/index.php/go/new-and-cool/problems_with_the_climate_models1/ for details on the problems of climate models.
Finally, the ice core records show that the Earth’s temperature has gone up and down many times in the last 10,000 years within a narrow range of 3-4ºC. The Earth’s current average temperature remains well within the temperature range of the past 10,000 years, demonstrating that there is nothing unusual about the current warming trend. The hard data behind this is discussed by Professor Bob Carter in an excellent video presentation which can be found at the following link:
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI for further details.
16. Monteen | 11.24.08
Your argument is via Wikipedia? Any fool can log on and say anything they like. Anyone who checks that site for accurate information is living in la-la land. You would do better just to look out the window.
And a UN report that refutes data? Huh? You’ve gotta be kidding me! Give me a break. The UN is full of thugs and needs to be gutted from the ground up.
Oops…it’s no longer called Global Warming… NOW, we’re calling it CLIMATE CHANGE. Why? Because it CHANGES. Good grief.
Wait, the icecaps on Mars are now expanding. Holy Cow! What will we argue about now? The simple fact is that things heat up and then they cool down.
In the meantime, the lemmings will come and go, as they are a part of the cycle that is earth… I would still like to adopt as many Snowy’s as I can cram into my carry-on bag. :-)
17. Pules | 11.25.08
None of your are scientists, and if you are, please stop wasting your time on blog posts. You said it yourselves, you know everything, and are clearly the only people who can save the world. If you are a receptionist/student/bored guy who reads science magazines-do not pretend like you know anything. Science 50 years ago predicted global cooling and an ice age, and science before that thought we were the center of the universe. Science changes, you are all obviously quite bored. Like me. But I’m cool.
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1. Related Reports: Lemmings Do Not Commit Mass Suicide But Sixty-Four Percent of Republicans Want Palin to Run for President in 2012 « JONATHAN TURLEY | 11.08.08
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1. Monteen McCord | 11.07.08
While emissions and the occassional volcano burp certainly don’t help, warming and cooling are CYCLICAL! So you can stop blaming yourself for the demise of the world. If it makes you feel any better, park the car and start walking, but it won’t change anything.
The Sun is a variable energy output star. VARIABLE. That means it isn’t constant.
Mars is even heating up! Are there SUV’s on Mars??? I don’t think so! Not last I looked, anyway.
Ancient Egypt used to be an oasis, but now it’s a hot, miserable desert. Were there SUV’s to screw up the climate 10 thousand years ago? Nope. Nope. Nope. It’s that crazy yellow thing in the sky. It giveth and it taketh away.
Given my penchant for Snowy Owls, no one is sadder to see the Lemmings go more than myself, but if we all stopped using fossil fuels today, the planet would STILL heat up and cool down, just like the Kiki Dee tune from the 70’s.
Human beings and animals are but a mere blip on the cosmic radar screen. We will come and go. The planet will cool down and heat up. Perhaps it’s her way of periodically ridding her glorious self of these pesky parasites called ‘humans’.