CLIMATE CHANGE AFTERMATH
By Anton Antonio
September 25, 2015
Doomsday scenarios are emotional and psychological
barriers. Talking about the aftermath of
climate change seems to be a negative thing to do. But, as disciples of environmental science,
we should take it upon ourselves to learn and understand even the direst of
scenarios. This, however, becomes
necessary if the primary purpose is to forewarn people to avert the impacts of
climate change. But what are the
possible post-climate change scenarios we should know? Here is a researched material on this matter;
please read…
“CLIMATE CHANGE MEANS ONE WORLD’S DEATH AND ANOTHER’S BIRTH…
A few years ago in a lab in Panama, Klaus Winter tries to
conjure the future. A plat physiologist
at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, he planted seedlings of 10
tropical tree species in small, geodesic greenhouses. Some he allowed to grow in the kind of
environment they were used to out in the forest, around 79 degrees
Fahrenheit. Others, he subjected to
uncomfortable high temperatures. Still
others, unbearably high temperatures – up to a daily average temperature of 95
Fahrenheit and a peak of 102 Fahrenheit.
That’s about as hot as Earth has even been. It’s also the kind of environment tropical
trees have a good chance of living in by the end of this century, thanks to
climate change. Winter wanted to see how
they would do. The answer came as a
surprise to those accustomed to dire warnings that climate change will turn the
Amazon into a desert. The vast majority
of Winter’s seedlings didn’t die. In
fact, most thrived as significantly warmer temperatures than they experience
today, growing faster and larger. Just
two species succumbed to the heat, and only at the very highest
temperatures. The trees’ success echoes
paleontological date, which hints that warmer temperatures can be a boon for
tropical forests. After all, the last
time Earth experienced average temperatures of 95 Fahrenheit, there were rainforests
in Michigan and palm trees in the Arctic.
That doesn’t mean climate change won’t affect tropical forests of
today. It already is. And it definitely doesn’t mean humans needn’t
worry about global warming. Climate
change will be the end of the world as we know it. But it also will be the beginning of another. Mass extinctions will open ecological niches,
and environmental changes will create new ones.
New creatures will evolve to fill them, guided by unforeseen selection
pressures. What this new world will look
like, exactly, is impossible to predict, and humans aren’t guaranteed to
survive in it. (And that’s if
civilization somehow manages to survive the climate disasters coming its way in
the meantime, from superstorms to sea level rise to agriculture-destroying
droughts). Still, experiments like
Winter’s offer a glimpse. Adapting to a
warmer world will be long and painful process for the rainforest, and many species
won’t make it through. Even so, “there
will still be tropical forests in 2100,” says Simon Lewis, a plant ecologist at
University College London and the University of Leads. They will probably even contain many of the
same species ecologists know today, including some of the trees in Winter’s
experiments. It’s the relationships
between those species, and the role each plays in the ecosystem, that will
change – and, in turn, transform the entire forest. “The forests that come out of this change are
probably going to be much different than the kinds of forests we have today,”
says Christopher Dick, an evolutionary geneticist who studies tropical trees at
the University of Michigan. Winter’s
data hints at one such change in the forest structure. The tree species that did the best under the
highest temperature regime were the coralwood tree (Adenanthera pavonina) a
species of the fig tree called Ficus insipid, and the balsa tree (Ochroma
pyramidale). Each is what Winter called
“pioneer species,” fast-growing trees that can quickly move into cleared areas
and take over. (F. insipida ups the
ante, beginning life as vine that climbs up dead trees – and also living ones,
eventually strangling them.) These kinds
of species are vital to a healthy rainforest, helping it regenerate after
destructive events like a flood or the death and collapse of a large tree (when
those things fall, they take out everything around them). But a mature rainforest needs the species
that slow up later, too. Those tend to be
larger and longer0lived, stabilizing the forest and serving as ecological linchpins
for insects, birds, monkeys, vines, and the rest of the ecosystem for decades
or even centuries. And it was those
so-called “climax species” that suffered the most under higher temperatures in
Winter’s experiments. That suggests that
as climax tree species die in a warmer forest, they won’t be replaced. “One would expect that tropical futures of
the future would be dominated by those nimble species that can disperse very
well,” Lewis says. Pioneer trees that
will put down roots anywhere, vines that grow into every nook and cranny, small
rodents that reproduce quickly and scurry far, birds that can fly over vast
swaths of land and aren’t too picky about where they nest. But that’s a small subset of the thousands of
species found in tropical forests today.
Without the rest of them, the rainforest will be a much simpler
place. Disturbingly, scientists have
observed something similar happening in the ocean. Much of the carbon dioxide humans release
into the atmosphere is eventually absorbed by the sea, gradually making the
water more and more acidic. This process
of ocean acidification can wreak havoc on marine invertebrates, dissolving
their shells and then their fragile bodies.
But just like in the tropical forest, “there are always the winners as
well as the losers of climate change,” says Ivan Nagelkerken, a marine
ecologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia. To get an idea of which species might thrive
under ocean acidification, he headed to two places where underwater vents
already spew carbon dioxide into the sea: Vulcano Island in Italy and White
Island in New Zealand. “These CO2 vents
are natural laboratories where you can get a peek into the future,” Nagelkerken
explains. As in Winter’s experiment,
that future was far from lifeless. But
the kind of life it supports has Nagelkerken worries. Carbon dioxide vents can occur in any marine
ecosystem, from coral reefs to kelp forests to seagrass plains. But no matter where you are, life in the most
acidic pockets looks strikingly similar.
Immediately around a vent, all ecosystems “transform into systems that
are dominated by turf algae – very short, fleshy algae with very little
structural complexity,” Naglekerken explains.
What’s more, “we did not observe a single predator on those vents.” As a result, the food web is dramatically
simplified, the number of fish species drops, and the ecosystem becomes “much
less valuable and productive.” Small
grazing fish that love turf algae will probably excel in the acidic oceans of
the future. But as they take over,
“everything will start to look like everywhere else,” Nagelkerken says. The new, homogenous ocean won’t be good for
humans. The fish that are likely to
thrive in the oceans of the future – small, adaptable species such as gobies
and blennies – are, simply, not fish people like to eat. And even if human tastes evolved, those fish
wouldn’t fill us up; most gobies clock in at fewer than 4 inches long. Humans like to eat big predators, like tuna
and marlin – exactly the kind of species that had disappeared from the CO2
vents Nagelkerken studied. As ocean
acidification restructures marine ecosystems, the first to go will be the fish
that people rely on for money and food.
Of course, Homo sapiens may be the ultimate generalist, nimble enough to
survive in almost every environment.
“We’re like cockroaches,” Dick says.
“I think we’ll stick around.
We’ll see the disaster we’ve created.”
But the recovery? May not. For the oceans to adapt to the new climate
and regain a level of productivity they enjoy today, “it’s not going to be in a
few generations,” Nagelkerken says. “You
could wait around for 10,000 years.”
Similarly, we might be long gone by the time the Amazon looks anything
like the complex forest of today. The
flip side of mass extinction, however, is rapid evolution. And if you’re willing to take the long view –
like, the million-year view – there’s a ray of hope to be found in today’s rare
species. The Amazon, in particular, is
packed with plant species that pop up few and far between and don’t even come
close to playing a dominant role in the forest.
But they might have treasure buried in their genes. Rare species – especially those that are only
distantly related to today’s common ones – “have all kinds of traits that we
don’t even know about,” says Dick.
Perhaps one will prove to thrive in drought, and another will
effortlessly resist new pests that decimate other trees. “These are the species that have all the
possibilities for becoming the next sets of dominant, important species after
the climate has changed,” Dick says.
That’s why humans can’t cut them all down first, he argues. If rainforests are going to have a fighting
chance of recovering their biodiversity and ecological complexity, those rare
species and their priceless genes need to be ready and able to step into the
spotlight. It might to be too late to
save the world humanity knows and loves.
But it still can still do its best to make sure the new one is just as
good – someday.”
From this report, we could imagine a different environment
after an extreme climate change regime.
Although it seems that Mother Nature and man could survive and adapt to
drastic changes in the environment, our world will never be the same
again. The choice is ours and ours
alone… do we really like this as a climate change aftermath?
Thoughts to
promote positive action…
(Please
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REFERENCE:
www.wired.com, (2015).
“Climate Change Means One World’s Death and Another’s Birth”. Retrieved on September 25, 2015 from http://www.wired.com/2015/09/climate-change-means-one-worlds-death-anothers-birth/
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