Climate Irrevocably Changing Arctic Ecosystems, Origins Traced To 1800s

[hatrack]

OTTAWA—"A circumpolar investigation led by Canadian scientists has discovered clear signs of climate change in scores of Arctic lakes dating back to the mid-19th century, when the Industrial Revolution kicked off widespread burning of fossil fuels.

Warmer temperatures have pushed some plant and animal life in the lakes over an ecological threshold that won't be reversed for generations, if ever, the scientists conclude in a study released yesterday. "We're seeing big changes occurring in lakes and ponds all around the Arctic. It's not just algae but also invertebrates like water fleas higher up the food chain," said University of Toronto professor Marianne Douglas, a polar lake expert and one of the lead researchers.

The study also found the ecological changes became greater the farther north the lakes were located, just as average temperatures have risen more in the High Arctic than farther south at the Arctic Circle.

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Douglas said mud cores from 46 Arctic lakes in Canada and three other countries showed clear evidence of a longer growing season beginning as far back as the 1850s, well before thinning pack ice and starving polar bears currently being linked to global warming. Russia, Norway and Finland provided the other research sites. The long-term evidence comes from the distinctive glassy casings of single-celled algae called diatoms that rain to the lake bottom as the algae die. Experts can read the past climate from the layers of sediment since some diatoms do better under ice and others in clear water. Douglas said the sediment cores suggest that many of the lakes were now ice-free a month longer than in the mid-1800s, doubling the growing season for some diatoms. This has produced a surge in Cyclotella, a diatom that thrives only under open water conditions."

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http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1109631011232&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968705899037&DPL=IvsNDS%2F7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

[ixat]

1. We're all gonna die.

And you know what the funniest thing is? The ones wiped out by hurricanes and tsunamis first are going to be people on the coasts... so it's going to be America's, ahem, inland population that will have to perpetuate the nation. Great, huh?