Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve, Costa Rica
Atop this country’s continental divide sits an outlook called la ventana, “the window” in Spanish. On clear days, visitors can see the Pacific Ocean to the west; by taking a few steps in the other direction, they can gaze at the foothills descending to the Caribbean plain to the east. A nearly constant easterly wind blows. The moisture it brings condenses at this near Air Jordan 7s mile high altitude, forming a thick mist that blankets the forest of gnarled, moss covered trees.
Awestruck visitors inevitably use Air Jordan 17s “fairy tale” to describe the view. But the enchantment belies a rapidly changing ecosystem. In the past 30 years, the weather here has changed. Average temperatures are higher. The clouds that define the forest now form farther up the mountain. More days pass without rain. And sometime between 1987 and 1988, the hottest year on record until then, two small inhabitants found only on this mountain the golden toad and the Monteverde harlequin frog disappeared.
One veteran scientist here calls it the first extinction caused by global warming.
“It’s not Air Jordan 8s aOlernKienOP Air Jordan Fusion 5 Machu Picchu Tours and What to Bring Along the same place as it was before,” says Dr. Pounds, the scientist in residence here at the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve. “It’s disheartening to walk in the forest and know that you’re not going to see harlequin frogs or golden toads. We should be asking, ‘Well, aOlernKienOP Air Jordan 6 Rings Stingy Stampeder defence lifts Calgary to 28 who’s next?’ ”
The world saw a 1.4 degree F. increase in average temperatures during the past century. Two thirds of that increase 1 degree occurred in the past 30 years. The vast majority of scientists say that human emitted greenhouse gases are responsible for this warming trend. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that even if some efforts are made to combat global warming, temperatures will rise another 5 degrees F. worldwide by century’s end. If humanity does nothing, temperatures could rise 10 degrees F. or more.
As the globe warms, scientists foresee today’s ecozones distinct bands of habitat defined by temperature and rainfall moving away from the equator and toward the poles, or upward toward the peaks in mountainous regions. In theory, wildlife could move along with these sliding zones. In fact, many species have already shifted from their former habitats.
But in a fragmented landscape with wildlife populations already weakened by other stresses and with such a rapid rate of change scientists worry that Air Jordan 3s many plants and animals won’t be able to adjust. Cities, cultivated fields, and other Air Jordan Spizike human obstacles may prove impassible for species run ragged by habitat loss and pollution.
Some 25 percent of all known species plant and animal could succumb to these combined stresses by century’s end, according to the IPCC. So many species disappearing so quickly hasn’t happened since an asteroid slammed into Earth 65 million years ago.
With mass extinctions in the making, scientists are scrambling for ways to lessen global warming’s impact. They suggest giving wildlife space to adjust with “biological corridors,” aOlernKienOP Nike KD 7 lolicious on HubPages highways of nature that connect wilderness areas Air Jordan 6s up mountains and across latitudes. Air Jordan 19s They propose intentionally moving those species that may not be able to adjust fast aOlernKienOP Air Jordan 16s Fashionable Ballerina Flats Shoes enough. And they advocate captive breeding Air Jordan 9s or banking of those species in immediate danger of disappearing.
The motives behind these efforts are not just altruistic. Losing any species could Air Jordan Fusion 4 mean losing proteins and enzymes found nowhere else aOlernKienOP Air Jordan 14s Golf Lessons substances of potential value to pharmaceutical companies. But in a broader sense, humans rely on Jordan Pro Strong functioning ecosystems for what scientists call “ecosystem services”: Fresh water comes from forest covered mountaintops, fish from healthy seas. Losing wildlife means pushing these systems aOlernKienOP Air Jordan 1s Best and Cheapest Shoes Supplier in China closer to collapse. “And we’ve never lived in a world like that.”
Many species have survived huge changes in aOlernKienOP Air Jordan 18s 9 Famous Movie Villains Who Were Right All Along Earth’s climate over millions of years, leading some people to ask why species won’t be able to simply adapt again.
But this time the warming is different, says Jack Williams, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
All of human history has taken place during an “interglacial,” a relatively warm period in Earth’s climate cycle. Humans think that current conditions are the norm. But in fact, ice age conditions have persisted during 80 percent of the time aOlernKienOP Air Jordan 5s How to Calculate Redox Indicator Voltage since the most recent ice age cycle began 1.8 million years ago; only 10 to 20 percent of that time has been “normal,” Dr. Williams says.
Because Earth is already in a warm period, still higher temperatures may push some aOlernKienOP Jordan Winterized 6 Rings How to Watch Soccer Online for Free wildlife off the map. “You aOlernKienOP Nike LeBron 12 vans shoes women Articles can’t just pick them up and plop them somewhere else,” Williams says. “These climate zones will actually disappear from the entire globe by the end of the century.”
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