[MCN] In our dependency on fossil fuels, we've been forcing life forms to run away from home

[Lance Olsen]

Long story made short, as we crank up the heat, rising temperatures effectively invite land and ocean species into areas that had long been too cold, and effectively evict species from areas now too hot to host them.

More specifically, species have been and will be “invited" into higher elevations and latitudes, and “evicted" from lower elevations and latitudes.

Range shift is a common name for this process. 

Lance

Examples

2006
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“Climate change is not a new topic in biology. ..... Observations of range shifts in parallel with climate change ... date back to the mid-1700s.”

 “This review  …  deals exclusively with observed responses of wild biological species and systems …."

"A surprising result is the high proportion of species responding to recent, relatively mild climate change (global average warming of 0.6 C)."

Parmesan, Camille. Ecological and Evolutionary Responses to Recent Climate Change. 
The Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics  2006. 37: pp. 637–69.

2006
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"Conservationists must therefore assess both current and future distributions of species.”

Araújo and Rahbek. How does climate change affect biodiversity? Science 2006).

2007
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“Climate has long been identified as a primary control on the geographic distribution of plants (Forman 1964, Box 1981). Therefore, plant species may be expected to exhibit marked redistributions in response to climate change." 

"…. In addition, species are expected to be redistributed independently, forming new forest types with unique species combinations (Webb 1992, Williams et al. 2004).”

McKenney et al. Potential Impacts of Climate Change on the Distribution of North American Trees. 
Bioscience  2007

2011 
*****

“Using a meta-analysis, we estimated that the distributions of species have recently shifted to higher elevations at a median rate of 11.0 meters per decade, and to higher latitudes at a median rate of 16.9 kilometers per decade. These rates are approximately two and three times faster than previously reported”

Chen et al. Rapid Range Shifts of Species Associated with High Levels of Climate Warming. Science 2011

 2013 
*******

“The rate of warming implies …  range shifts of up to several kilometers per year, raising the prospect of daunting challenges for ecosystems …”

Diffenbaugh and Field. Changes in Ecologically Critical Terrestrial Climate Conditions. Science. 2013

2015 
*****

"If you are an organization that has focused on conserving particular species in a particular place, as many of today's conservation organizations are, then something has to give—either you need to change your business model or revisit your conservation priorities. And neither is going to be easy for some of these groups," said Paul Armsworth, lead author and associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

Full release:
<<https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150302105334.htm <https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150302105334.htm>>>

2016
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“Climate change impacts have now been documented across every ecosystem on Earth, despite an average warming of only ~1°C so far."

Scheffers et al. The broad footprint of climate change from genes to biomes to people. 
Science, 11 NOVEMBER 2016

2017
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“...the ability of natural ecosystems to deliver ecosystem services is being challenged by the largest climate-driven global redistribution of species since the Last Glacial Maximum.”

“Human society has yet to appreciate the implications of unprecedented species redistribution for life on Earth …."Even if greenhouse gas emissions stopped today, the responses required in human systems to adapt to the most serious effects of climate-driven species redistribution would be massive.”
 
Pecl et al. 2017. Biodiversity redistribution under climate change: Impacts on ecosystems and human well-being. 
Science. 31 March 2017

2020
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NEWS RELEASE 26-MAY-2020
Warming climate is changing where birds breed
Migratory behavior and winter geography drive differential range shifts of eastern birds in response to recent climate change
<<https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-05/sje-wci052620.php <https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-05/sje-wci052620.php>>>

1970
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“What can be said with assurance is that there is a unique and nearly ubiquitous compound, with the empirical formula H296o O1480 C1480 N16 P1.8 S called living matter. 

Its synthesis, on an oxidized and uncarboxylated earth, is the most intricate feat of chemical engineering ever performed –-- and the most delicate operation that people have ever tampered with.”

Edward S. Deevey, Jr. Mineral Cycles.
Scientific American, September 1970

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“ … a hot, hotter, and much hotter world could set off a severe and gruesome culling of the human herd, and we’ll be bringing a lot down with us.”
Lance Olsen
https://mountainjournal.org/why-rising-temps-mean-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it <https://mountainjournal.org/why-rising-temps-mean-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it>





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