Ample evidence Florida's feeling effects of climate change

[steven johnson]

Florida has become an experimental laboratory for the effects of climate change. The nearly 2 degree Fahrenheit temperature rise over the last century is starting to show significant effects on the biota.

Posted on Friday, 03.27.09
BY GEORGIA TASKER
[e-mail]

People who study South Florida's environment say global warming is starting to have a significant impact on Florida's fish, fowl and flora.

Among those beginning to see the signs is Hammond, a private researcher in Charleston, S.C., who retired after 35 years with that state's Department of Natural Resources. He now runs a company called Cooperative Sciences Services. His fish, tagged in waters between South Florida and North Carolina, appear to be migrating farther north. Last year, one in five were hooked anew between North Carolina and Massachusetts, and one swam its way to the waters off of Nova Scotia.

Studies say that oceans have warmed an average of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 100 years. (A challenge for scientists is to differentiate between long-term changes in ocean temperatures and natural, short-term fluctuations due to such influences as El Niño, the periodic condition that sometimes occurs around Christmas.)

A long-term change of less that two degrees may seem small, ''but for marine animals that's quite a dramatic change,'' Fogarty said. At the same time, the melting of Arctic sea ice has accelerated and is now at a point it wasn't expected to reach until 2040.

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